Driving in Bulgaria

The May 2017 issue contained an article on self-driving in Bulgaria (page 6). As I knew that a lot of roads there have only Cyrillic road signs, I emailed the private Bulgarian guide Patrick Peneff (www.guide-bg.com), who advertises in ITN, and asked about driving in that country.

(On several occasions, my late wife, Flory, and I had engaged Patrick as a guide, even paying him a deposit, but then had to cancel for medical reasons.)

Patrick replied, “In Bulgaria, once you leave the main roads and start driving the secondary roads, road signs are often just in Cyrillic, and locals do not speak English. Also, there are potholes. So for someone who wants to drive without a guide to visit the countryside and the small villages — in other words, to go ‘off the beaten track’ — the mission would be impossible.”

“However, the main roads in Bulgaria are fine and signed in both Cyrillic and Roman script, therefore it is not difficult for someone to hire a car and visit bigger places, such as Sofia, Plovdiv, Varna and Veliko Tarnovo.”

PHILIP WAGENAAR, Contributing Editor