Edirne

A couple of weeks ago we went to Edirne to make the visa run to Bulgaria. I realized I haven’t written about it, so even though it’s a month ago I would still like to share it with you. Both Mirjam and me needed to renew our visa so we decided to go to Edirne, and Marina joined us 
Once we arrived in Edirne we walked around a bit, ate some delicious and very cheap Edirne döner before we started our adventure. On our way to the dolmuş to Kapikule in Bulgaria we thought it might be wise to check which seats would be available for our way back to Istanbul. We checked the office of the company with which we came; Nilüfer. They informed us that all seats for that day were taken, perhaps we could take the cancelled reservations if we came back at 5 pm. Hmm…a bit worried we took the dolmuş to Kapikule, they leave from the dolmuş station near the city centre. The ride to the border was really nice, slanting hills with beautiful flowers, horses and farmers…the real Turkey to me! After about half an hour we arrived at the border where the dolmuş dropped us off. On foot we continued. We were so lucky that it was a beautiful and quiet day so we didn’t have to wait long in the queue for the first booth. It was so funny we just waited in line between the cars, and the guys at the visa booth looked a bit strange at us. Nevertheless they gave us the stamp and we walked further to the next booth. There it was a little bit more difficult as they started to ask us all sorts of questions, but because we thought it was so funny and were laughing all the time they were just kidding around. Finally we arrived in Bulgaria where we bought an ice cream and walked back to Turkey. Arriving at the booth to buy our visa for Turkey we saw it was the same guy as in the other booth on our way out!! So of course he thought hmm…what’s going on here. So he asked what we did and that we shouldn’t lie to him… So we just said we went to Bulgaria to buy an ice cream and decided to go back to Turkey. It was really funny and luckily he could laugh about the situation too! Then we waited for the dolmuş to pick us up again. So it was really really easy and I think it took us only 1,5 hour back and forth from Edirne.
Back in Edirne we met up with Marina who waited for us there and started to look at other bus companies to check about the return tickets. After asking all the companies in Edirne we found out that all the tickets we sold! The next available tickets were the other day at 2 pm. So we were a bit freaking out! To make a long story short; after we came back to the same office for the third time there was another guy (he seemed like some kind of manager) and after making some calls he arranged us tickets back to Istanbul! Yeah! We were really relieved. So with the tickets in the pocket we could finally enjoy and explore Edirne. And it was worth it! Edirne is such a nice city. It’s not too big, but there are quite a lot of sights to visit and the atmosphere is really good there. Also we were very lucky we came a day before Cocuk Bayrami and could see all sorts of folklore dances, music and parades!
So in the end the visa run wasn’t the tricky part, just make sure you buy return tickets right from the start ;)