Wedged between Moldova and Ukraine, only 30km wide in places, and recognised by no other country in the World, is the Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic (Приднестровская Молдавская Республика) also known as Transnistria.
Leaving Galați after very little sleep as a result of a wedding on the Danube, I head for the EU exit for the second time on this trip. The border with Moldova is just a few kilometres away along the river, on the other side of an old industrial area.
Despite both Bulgaria and Romania being EU members, neither are part of Schengen, so consequently there are border controls. Fortunately these formalities do not take long and my Bulgarian Lev is soon exchanged for Romanian Leu.
After passing (and mostly jumping) through the long queue for Bulgarian Customs, I quickly change all my Turkish Lira for Bulgarian Lev, adding in a few Euro for good measure. Petrol is replenished and I head straight for the Black Sea coast along a heavily pot-holed forest road.
I begin the tour in Thessaloniki, Greece. The bike had been shipped here by Bike-on-Board in Düsseldorf, saving me 2,000km of motorway riding to reach the start point. My luggage, helmet etc, shipped with the bike and I flew out with just hand-luggage for a couple of nights in Greece before I collect the bike.
We head across the Rhine from Karlsruhe and into Pfalz, where we soon leave the motorway and head south to France. We cross the border in the small town of Scheibenhardt which is split between the two countries, where we immediately head east, following the border on the French side until we hit the town
Sailing from Algeciras on the southern tip of Spain, we make the two hour ferry crossing to Tanger. During the crossing we complete immigration controls on board. There are further controls once we arrive in the port, which we rapidly clear being the first vehicles off the boat.
During our first trip to the Balkans in 2012, we found ourselves heading south from Montenegro through Kosovo and then on to Macedonia. When I was stood looking out over lake Ohrid from the Roman Amphitheater on the hill in Ohrid, I said that we should return and visit the once isolated country on the
