The road to Paradise

We emerged, blinking, into the Greek sunshine, from Bulgaria on Tuesday afternoon, having spent the previous night and much of the morning in Paradise. But more of that later.
Our first impressions of Bulgaria were not good.
To be fair to the latest member of the European community, first impressions are often wrong.
When we were planning this trip we were determined to cut and run through Serbia.
Our scant knowledge of the country had been gleaned from grisly TV footage of war and ethnic cleansing and the foul image of Slobodan Milosevic was hard to erase.
But Serbia was great fun, if slightly surreal. We danced with young, and old, Serbs at the Belgrade street party on Eurovision night. We spent the night in a modernist motel whose 1970s fixtures and fittings would make the editorial staff at Wallpaper magazine prespire with lust, and had dinner in one of the best fish restaurants this side of the Danube.
The people we met were invariably friendly, yes even the hordes of surly looking police officers who spend Eurovision weekend mooching around Belgrade, smoking.
The countryside is very lush and while the tourist infrastructure is still in its infancy, we could only find one campsite, hence the motel, there seems to be huge potential. A few years of stable government, some Euro cash and Serbia could be the next hot spot.
Apparently the Black Sea coast of Bulgaria is currently one of Europe's top destinations, with property developers snapping up land as fast as Bulgarian lawyers can draw up the contracts.
The region between the Serbian border and Sofia, Bulgaria's capital is rather different however.
Things started to go badly when the border guard snatched our passports and threw them back with barely a grunt.
We had to queue for what seemed like hours to be told that we had to pay five euros for "sanitary" clearance.
Fair enough, we thought. Poor countries have to raise hard currency any way they can, but they could at least take it with a smile.
Then on to the toll booth, in front of which stood a large signing bearing the legend: five euros for one week's vignette.
"Twenty five euros please," smiled the man behind the screen. He ignored my pleas that his government's own sign, only inches from his desk and the RAC travel advice clutched firmly in my sweaty hand, both suggested the charge was only five euros.
"Twenty five euros," he said, smiling again. "If you do not have the vignette, you will be fined by the police."
He waved it, tantalisingly, in front of us.
Normally we would have paid up without a quibble. Bulgaria is renowned for its corruption and organised crime, and there was no point in us fighting a battle when the EU can't win the war. But we only had twenty euros.
"There is a bank over there," he said, pointing with glee. He knew we had an honest, anxious look about us.
But the bank had no cash machine and the surly teller refused to advance us cash on any of our cards. Visa, Visa Electron, Maestro (twice), Mastercard, American Express, she turned her lip up at all of them. "If only Harvey Nichols had done the same," I heard my husband cry.
She almost spat at us when we proffered Serbian currency and we knew it was pointless to flash our remaining Scottish bank notes.
We trundled back to the toll booth. "Okay," grinned our tormenter. "Let me see what I can do."
He pressed a few computer keys. "You say you are going to Athens soon, okay, I give you vignette for...let me see...you have twenty euros. Okay, give me sixteen."
And the deal was done, as simple as that. He gave us four euros back with the precious five euro vignette. No receipt of course.
We went on our not so merry way to Sofia in search of a campsite and cash machine. Instead we found Paradise.
To be continued...