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TO GET from Edirne to Bulgaria involves either a direct crossing on a road I feared would be too busy or a repeat of our journey a lifetime ago when we came in the opposite direction. That means that same hour and a half in Greece and, of course, that militarised crossing from Turkey.

It was a lot more quiet than last time. So much quieter that much of the way between the passport office and the armed soldiers at the actual border there was a sleeping dog. It looked so improbable that I thought it was a sandbag. Who knows the curious ways of border patrols? In my defence, I can say that the dog was sand-coloured and about as inert as a bag of sand. Which is to say, very inert indeed.

This was my final chance to take on the Turkish army single-handed and unarmed. I rode slowly up to and then pointedly around the dozing hound, smiled at the first soldier and pointed back. It was more than he could resist and he grinned and waved me on my way.

It was the Greek army that made up for it. To get from one country to the other entails riding a couple of hundred metres between high fences. A short distance after Turkey you get to a large blue panels with the 12 yellow stars of the European Union, the letters GR and the words, in English, 'Welcome to Greece.'

You can probably see this sign and all that surrounds it from a satellite. You can see it, no doubt, on Google Earth. But you won't see it here because the moment I got out my camera to picture what, foolishly, I took to be a welcome to Greece, a soldier came running along with his gun and shouted, in English, 'No pictures.'

So there are no pictures.

And there are no pictures, either, of Philip and Fabian, two Germans I met as they rode bare-chested with the howling wind behind them. But that was because I forgot to take one. I persuaded them into the way of sloth by suggesting the service station they had just passed sold coffee. And over coffee, at a table outside, we compared notes on the best way to get into Istanbul and to parcel up a bike, and what happens and where with Eurovelo 6, their route and soon to be mine to the Danube and beyond. A nice couple. I shall enjoy hearing how they get on.

No dog or sign drama on crossing into Bulgaria. Clearly no nation has secrets from the other, and both are in the EU anyway, although I think Bulgaria isn't part of the Schengen zone.

Tonight I am sleeping beside a track between two Bulgarian maize fields. It is blissfully quiet.