Miles Driven: 551
Hours in Car: 11
Borders Crossed: 2
Thursday morning we quickly checked out the Romanian parliament building - the largest building in the world second to the Pentagon. Spoiler alert, it’s huge. We then started our 3 hour drive to Vama Veche - a Romanian beach village on the shores of the Black Sea.
Vama Veche first came to fame as a destination for rebellious Romanians during Ceauşescu’s dictatorship. It was once known as the “Woodstock of the Romanian Rivera” during the 1970s counter culture movement. Now it’s one of Romania’s top party destination and the site of the Adventurist’s officially sponsored Mongol Rally beach party. Once we arrived in Vama Veche, it’s plain to see why many historical residents are dissatisfied with how Vama Veche has transpired over the past 20 years. Gone are the open beach spaces and quiet boardwalks along the beach. Now the beaches are crammed with cabanas and patio chairs and the boardwalk is filled with bars that party each night till the sun comes up.
Three pasty boys and Joe
We got to Vama Veche around 3, made camp, and immediately headed to the beach with our bucket of beers we were gifted with upon arrival at the campground. We had a quick swim in the warm water, chatted with a Kiwi team we had previously met in Bucharest, and even played a game of spikeball with a set two Americans brought with them (much to the shock and awe to our Romanian fellow beach dwellers). As the sun set, the night gravitated back to the campsite’s main lawn where there was a DJ playing music. As more ralliers arrived at the campsite throughout the night, things escalated into a raucous campsite party that eventually migrated to one of the beachside clubs.
Sending it from Sozapol
Friday’s sunrise came early and so did the hangovers. Credit to the entire team however for holding true to our objective of leaving Vama Veche by 7:30 AM. Only a kilometer down the road was Bulgaria and we were on our day long road trip to Istanbul. To spice up our drive, we chose to stop in Sozapol - an old port town in Bulgaria. While it’s known for having wonderful beaches and a nice old town, we really stopped there because Mike had learned that Sozapol had some cliffs that were good for jumping off into the Black Sea. The short detour only added 2 hours to our trip, but hurling oneself off 45 foot cliffs was a nice refresher to break up the monotony of a 9 hour drive.
We made it to the Turkish border and much to our surprise passed customs in 45 minutes. We had budgeted 4 hours for this border crossing in planning our day so 45 minutes was incredible. From there, we had relatively smooth sailing to Istanbul except for when we entered the downtown part of the city. It was chaos. We are staying in Galata Tower and arriving around 8 PM on a Friday didn’t help our cause. After spending 40 minutes aimlessly trying to find parking and nearly driving down Istanbul’s equivalent of Times Square, we finally parked our car. Exhausted from the drive and the previous night’s activities, we had the first doner we saw before calling it a night. We’ve got two full days in Istanbul and we’re extremely excited we won’t be seeing Stevie until Monday morning. -FWY