The longest travel day by far

This is maybe one of the longest ways to get to Paris. It seemed like a good idea when we were booking it because it saved us about 400 pounds, but it made for a long day

What we didn't mention about our taxi ride yesterday, was that he didn't really speak any English at all but wanted to make sure we got to the right place. When we got in the car, he took our tickets and kept them for the duration of the ride. What we learnt once we got there though was that this was so he could speak Turkish to the people at the desk and make sure we were properly checked in! He also comandeered a (slightly broken) trolley so that we could transport our bags easily the 10m from the car to the bus stop!

After some more çay from one of the many roadside stalls in the bus station, we boarded the Metro bus and started heading back to Sofia. This was a reasonably uneventful trip, apart from the two hours it

took to get through the border due to the number of people there. We arrived at 2am as well! Luckily being in a bus meant we got to skip most of the line. I would hate to think how long it would take for a car to get through, the line seemed to go on forever!

We arrived in Sofia at 7.30am, in time to see the sun rising above the local nuclear power plant. We headed straight into the city to find some breakfast and try to figure out how we could fill in four hours. After a stroll around the park we headed for our local coffee shop and settled in for a few cups and good chat with the owner.

By 1pm it was time to head to Sofia airport to catch our Air Serbia flight to Paris. The first flight was an hour to Belgrade on a tiny propellor plane (similar to that for a Mount Cook Airlines flight from Dunedin to Christchurch). After a rather brief and stressful stopover

in Belgrade we boarded our second flight to Paris.

Thankfully we had one of the easiest custom clearances at Charles De Gaulle Airport, and promptly found the train and metro to our airbnb in Montmartre. Although a tiny two room apartment on the seventh floor, it does have a pretty spectacular view of the Eiffel Tower. Having been to Paris before we are looking forward to a slightly more restful six nights here, our last stop in Europe.