It was a long day's drive. We didn't get away until after 9am because I went to Mass. I didn't understand a word, of course, but it was the same rite so I could follow along. We hadn't entered "Eastern Orthodox" territory yet.
It was easy driving, for the most part, other than lots of detours in Serbia as they were improving the roads. The detours were well known, as Waze and the Fiat Nav both had similar time estimates, followed the detours and had left ample time for that last part of the journey. There were a couple of short sections where the road improvement had been finished so the NAV thought that we were off-roading.
While still in Croatia, we caught up to a couple of Teslas driving in formation. They had signage on the side of the car. They continued into Serbia and we eventually lost them as they were traveling under the speed limit. Perhaps they were driverless ? A Model S & X.
It was a bit slow getting into Serbia with backup at the border and awful getting out. We spent an hour at the Serbia/Bulgaria border, mostly leaving the former. At the Bulgaria border they wanted all sorts of car documentation, which I didn't even realize was in the glove compartment.
Bulgaria is in the EU; Serbia isn't (although I believe that they've applied). Bulgaria isn't in the Schengen (borderless) area. Neither is Croatia, as far as I can tell, but Slovenia is. Anyway, crossing borders is a mixed bag. Once we're back in Italy, or I guess Slovenia, there won't be border slowdowns. We have vignettes (Motorway passes) for both Slovenia and Bulgaria, so we don't have to do anything about that on the way back. We will have to pay tolls in Serbia, Croatia, Italy, Spain, France and Italy. Oh joy.
It was raining when we got into Sofia around 8pm (now 7 hours time difference) and we happily ate at the hotel. The food was excellent ! We both had the stuffed trout and we shared a grilled Camembert ... even though I'd tried to order grilled eggplant. Oh well. Sandy had desert and I had more cheese.
Onward !
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