Hello! First of all I want to excuse for my English and I would like to tell you about my trip experience by car from Italy to Bulgaria in the end of June, 2017.
So when you are going from Italia to Bulgaria the shortest way is to pass across Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia and then Bulgaria.
All those places are quite tranquil and without any problem. But there are still some particulars.
Preparations to the trip.
The trip is long about 1400 km so it is something like 13 hours non-stop. With stops it's going to be 16 hours. So the car should be in good conditions. I used VW Golf 4 1.9TDI 2001, a great little car. Before the departure I went to mechanic and checked all systems. After mechanic's "ok", next step is the preparing documents for the trip. I needed 1. Car's document. 2. Insurance for the car. 3. Driver license 4. My passport. Also I bought some bottles of water and red bull.
Departure.
I departed at 5 a.m. from Imola and about 8.30 a.m. I was already near to the border with Slovenia, the highway in Italy are expensive enough so from Imola to the Slovenian border costs about 23€ .
IMPORTANT! In Slovenia is different system of payment for the highways. They want the vignette. I bought it at the last service area in Italy, 15€ for 1 week. For 1 month it costs 30€. Then I attacked the vignette to the front glass of the car following the instructions on it. The videocameras installed on the highways are just reading it from the car. In Slovenia the roads are very good and the max speed is 130 km/h. Some parts have the max speed limit is 110km/h.
Road.
To the border with Croatia I arrived with half of tank. I have never been in Croatia with the car and I didn't know about the fluel/diesel prices. So I decided to stop in Slovenia and to make full tank.
Oh! I got a little incedent there! I discovered a little electronic problem with my car. Accendently I left the car key inside and the car has blocked the doors. So I called the help of the guys from the fluel station and they called a mechanic. He arrived in 30 min. has opened the car in 10 min and asked for his service 70€ without fracture. So don't leave the car's key inside in Slovenia, it costs a lot. By the way the diesel 31Lt costs 35€. So with all this problem I lost about 1h. This was the only incident on my way there. And it is ok.
On the borders there are some rows but nothing of special.
The next after Slovenia is Croatia. The payment system is the same with Italy. I pay on the place for the road I passed. No problems. The highway max speed limit is 130 km/h. Sometimes 120. Total cost of the highway to across the country is about 20€.
Then Serbia is a bit different... the roads cost quite less but their quality sometimes is worse. But still nothing of special. The total cost to across the country is about 8€. Arriving to Niš I had to keep attention of the road signs because a big part of the highway is still under construction. So my sat nav was telling me to proceed that way but in reality it is temporary closed and the way is modified to another road. Actually it is even better because the second road passes amazing places. Those rocks are absolutely beautiful.
There max speed limit in that part of road is 80/90 km/h. On the highways is 120 km/h.
The payment system is the same as in Italia and Croatia.
In Bulgaria there was a row. Usually Bulgarians are very slow to do all. So I passed about 20/30 min in row to wait my turn. And I the border I bought also the vignette that costs 15€ for 1 months. In Bulgaria is important to be attent because Bulgarians are very bad drivers and they are always driving very fast. That's why along the road I could see a lot of photo and flowers of people died in incidents.
And along the road there are a lot of cameras that register the speed. The max highway speed limit is 130km/h. Sometimes 140km/h. The roads have different quality. Sometimes they are perfect and sometimes I had to go slow because they were destroyed.
In Sofia I arrived at 10.30 p.m
IMPORTANT! Everywhere along the road are accepting euro. So there is no need to change money for every country. And there is no more roaming for mobile phones for all countries in European Union. Serbia isn't in EU so the roaming is still there.
By the way it is an obligation in Bulgaria to have a fire extinguisher, triangle and kit pharmacy on the board.
The police in Bulgaria is corrupt so it's better to have all necessities.
Actually that's all..
Thank you for attention.