‘Three countries in three days’ probably doesn’t sound like I’m not making much progress.

I left Greece on Sunday, crossed the south-western corner of Bulgaria, and arrived today (Tuesday) in Macedonia. I’ve gone from the Eurozone, to an EU country with its own currency, to a non-EU European country (which accepts Euros quite happily).

But I have slowed down. I’ve not been feeling great, especially today. I’m not sure if I’ve just overdone it on the hills. Or if the hay-fever that’s been bothering me for the last couple of weeks is starting to affect my riding.

Whichever it is, I’m definitely not 100% at the moment, and blasting up some fairly big hills too quickly probably hasn’t helped things much.

I didn’t expect Bulgaria to be as beautiful as it is. But I also didn’t expect the ride to Bulgaria to be as hard as it was on Sunday. There are very few flat routes through mountains, but I’d picked a relatively easy pass. Once the Greek downpours had subsided, I headed off quickly towards the border.

Probably too quickly. I’d had the unexpected day off due to the rain, and was feeling fresh. It was a fairly low pass over the mountains (about 700 vertical metres), on an easy gradient. I hit it pretty hard, pleased to find out that my climbing legs hadn’t deserted me.

What I’d probably not appreciated enough was that there was not much chance to recover over the top. Just more hills up to the border, a headwind, and a fairly flat run – admittedly with a tiny bit of downhill – to Gotse Delchev, at the foot of the enormous Pirin range (slightly disappointing picture of a stunning mountain range above).

I was feeling rough when I got there, but seemed to recover OK overnight. Only to be faced with a much steeper pass, up to 1450 metres, yesterday morning.

I got up to the pass in less than two hours, which is pretty reasonable, considering the weight of the bike and bags. The effects of Sunday’s effort had apparently just melted away.

And having hit the pass, and met its slightly fearsome guardian (above), I got to enjoy one of my favourite downhills of the whole trip: 25 kms of smooth, twisty tarmac. Surrounded by the spectacular scenery of southern Bulgaria. By the time I hit the bottom, I was grinning like a lunatic, and was having one of my best days ever on a touring bike.

A look back at the Pirins (above), and it was a short(ish) and flat(ish) run to Petrich to finish the day, and for my second and final night in Bulgaria.

Today, there was just 25 kms to go to the border with Macedonia. I spent last night debating how far I was going to get towards Skopje, the capital. I reckoned I should be able to get there from Petrich in two days without too much effort.

I know better now. The climbs of the last couple of days in the mountains had caught up with me. My legs were still sore this morning (never a good way to start), and I felt like I was lacking energy. Oh, and I was sneezing every time I came within sight of a flower. And there are wild flowers in the edge of pretty much every field over here.

In the end, a leisurely half-day’s ride across the border to Strumica was as much as I was going to manage today.

Still, it’s country number 26, and it’s a bit flatter than Bulgaria, at least for the first few days.

Better yet, there appeared to be a tractor-based protest going on when I got into town. You can’t beat a convoy of hundreds of little red tractors trundling past (for roughly twenty minutes).

What fun Macedonia already seems to be…