Our longest day was almost 14 hours. Roads have at times beeen very rough particularly in Romania & Bulgaria. A few things have fallen off the car including the bonnet coming adrift at the hinge. Have received tremendous welcomes driving through the villages with all the school children waving & calling out. Some of these villages were so  primitive & untouched by tourists as most tourists would have no reason to go there.

In Bulgaria, one of the lunch controls was at Vlad the Impaler's castle. The parking for us was around a courtyard. As soon as we drove in, lots of children came up to us seekýng our autographs. Whilst Phil got under the car to check things, Laurette felt like a movie star signing all manner of things thrust in front of her!

The hotels are generally excellent as is the food. In Romania & Bulgaria the dinner entertainment was traditional dancing. The evenings are usually big social events & much discussion about the events of the day.

There are no signs written in English. The signs where there are any, use the Cryllic alphabet. We have to redraw our maps the previous night in order to navigate the next day. We also had to transpose the names from Englýsh ýnto cryllýc. We are doing better than most at this.