Carry On Camping

We have just come back from a little camping holiday. Our campsite was near Varna, on the Black Sea. 

It was pretty much a last-minute thing. We were in VT, so we thought that a little trip to the seaside would be fairly simple. The bad news was that the distance from Veliko Tarnovo to the coast is actually a lot further than we had thought it was. Yes, there is a lovely stretch of new motorway – well, what passes for a “motorway” in Bulgaria – but the other roads were pretty ghastly. Finding the campsite was also not so easy! When we were coming back to VT, we took the old road by mistake and that probably added an hour to our journey.

Anyway, the actual location of the Eco Club campsite is wonderful, with lovely views of the sea and lots of nice pine trees. Our fellow-campers were a helpful and friendly bunch. Most of them seemed to like the company of a naughty little Jack Russell. The beach was quite good, fairly sandy and the water was clean. Although we had a little bit of rain, most of the time the weather was perfect.

The bad news? The access was terrible. Getting to the campsite meant driving down a “track” that was really lots of rocks and ruts. Maybe the track would be okay if you are driving a serious offroader or perhaps a tank. If you are driving an ordinary saloon car, then you might have to add the cost of a new exhaust to the price of your holiday! Access was also a problem with the beach. The “steps” down to the sand were incredibly steep and not in good repair. OAPs and small children would find the climb up and down to the beach quite difficult.

Once you have managed the assault course and you have somehow made it down to the beach, you are confronted with another problem: nudists! There were a lot of them. Bloody bad manners, I would say, or was it just bare-faced cheek? Irena and I did not feel comfortable with so many people showing off their wobbly bits. Yes, if it is a pretty young lady, then I have no problem, but some of them would actually look a lot better with some clothes on.

As for my on-going battles, my attorney has now sorted out the electricity company and it looks as though we will be getting a refund of more than five hundred pounds. Although HSBC, the bank in Qatar, might perhaps be giving us most of our money back, there is still some more paperwork to be sorted out.