Hello,
After reading the good advice that we have already received on this forum our next step must be to come and have a look around. We understand and expect the 'rural' aspects that we will find as we have both traveled extensively in the past, we know it won't be like England.
It looks likely that my wife Nik will be coming out to 'check out' possible villages/areas within the next couple of months. Manchester is our nearest major airport so she will likely fly to Sofia then travel onwards to the area that we are most interested in (which we don't know yet..!!!). Are travel links good from Sofia? Are there any areas that aren't well served? Would it be worth hiring a car? Err....oh, thats it for now - drinky time.....

Cheers, Dave.

Hi Dave and Nik

Good luck with the trip!

You can get to most places via bus / train from Sofia, and you can always grab an internal flight over to the coast.

However, if you are wanting to live in a rural 'village', then a car is a must to really get off the beaten track.

Cheers
Chris

As Chris has said if you need to see rural BG then a car is a must.

Yes - If you want to head into rural areas, hire a car - would also suggest requesting sat nav.

Be warned with sat nav - it may take you on some dodgy roads - they are not always completely up to date - but they will get you heading in the right direction. A good site that I use is [url:2nenqzmd]http:
//www.
bgmaps.
com/en[/url:2nenqzmd]

Good Luck

Esta wrote:

Be warned with sat nav - it may take you on some dodgy roads - they are not always completely up to date - but they will get you heading in the right direction. A good site that I use is [url:2pku4ndu]http:
//www.
bgmaps.
com/en[/url:2pku4ndu]

Good Luck

We drove with a sat nav and found it really good in BG, however we bought the sat nav in BG and not from Ebay or any other country. Be warned that buying a sat nav is not easy when it comes to finding BG and surrounding countries on them. If you are purchasing one from the UK make sure what countries it covers and whether it covers the whole country and not only 55% of them. They make a journey easy as long as you put the right info into them, ours even showed us crossing the Bosphorous Sea going back to Turkey.

I would agree with all that has been said here but I would also add that if you are thinking of car hire then Bulgaria really isn't the place to start driving unless you have a lot of experience in driving abroad, the drives in Bulgaria don't seem to have any road sense as we know it so do be very careful. Good luck with your trip it may be better to come back here when you have an idea where is it you wish to go to and then some of us maybe be able to be more specific or even share a coffee with you.

I would first of all deicide on location and then ask again that way you will get direct answers and who knows maybe even transport timetables etc.

Hey Guys,We are looking in veliko tarnovo any villages. I am very capable of catching train up to Gorna Oryahovitsa and get a taxi to veliko. I love travelling around.
I like houses in Ruse too!!!!!!!!!!!!

Nik

Dave &Nik wrote:

Hey Guys,We are looking in veliko tarnovo any villages. I am very capable of catching train up to Gorna Oryahovitsa and get a taxi to veliko. I love travelling around.
I like houses in Ruse too!!!!!!!!!!!!

Nik

We have travelled around that area and you certainly need a car. It all depends if you want to live in a village or near a town, suffice it to say that properties in villages are nice and are cheaper, whereas towns can be considerably more. Dryanovo, Gabrovo, Daskot, Zaya and Paskalevets are nice areas, but it all depends on what you want.

We live in a small village near VT. There are local buses, but if you are wanting to visit several outlying
villages a hired car is the best option. Lots of houses for sale around here, and it is a beautiful area.
Good luck!

I have been told that it is an easy route from Sofia to VT by friends, by some friends who have traveled this route a few times now. I think you will definitely need a hire car if you do not want to be restricted by bus time tables.

Esta wrote:

I have been told that it is an easy route from Sofia to VT by friends, by some friends who have traveled this route a few times now. I think you will definitely need a hire car if you do not want to be restricted by bus time tables.

We have done the Sofia Airport route to VT a few times and once you are out of the airport area and onto the main road it is easy, straight road to VT.

Just watch out for the many speed cops!

Sofia to VT is a fairly easy run, getting out of Sofia and onto the right road is the worst part! [You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

For train timetables put 'German Timetables' into your browser and the timetable is for all of Europe including BG and the UK.

Tony