The sign in the car park bids me “Lucky Drive” as I leave Rila monastery. I’m only a few hours into my Bulgarian fly-drive break, but I’ve already seen enough of the country’s roads to take the message seriously.

The self-drive holiday is popping up in increasingly unlikely places, especially across eastern Europe, and for obvious reasons. With my own car, I’ve been able to enjoy the exquisite frescoes, relics and mountain setting of Bulgaria’s foremost spiritual centre, rather than endure some Soviet-style guided tour. I’m a hostage to nobody’s itinerary but my own, which means I’ve had time to puzzle over the meaning of God with a bearded monk, wander a few of the forest trails around the monastery and even enjoy a couple of the 10p-a-time mekitsi (a type of doughnut) from the bakery outside the east gate.

Now I’m pushing on through the Pirin mountains, in the southwest, thinking that Bulgaria’s little-known Orthodox and formerly Ottoman culture, its gorges, flower-filled meadows and snowcapped May peaks might just make it a mecca for independent tourers — except for the sign outside the monastery. As I wind my way back down the mountain road, through beech woods, past chimneys topped by nesting storks and pyramids of honey jars on lay-by stalls, I am reminded of the Foreign Office’s travel advice for Bulgaria (www.fco.gov.uk): roads in poor condition, unmarked roadworks and low driving standards, as you might expect in these parts, but the FO also warns against aggressive drivers, who may be armed, endemic car theft and criminals impersonating traffic policemen in order to flag down vehicles.

I’ve had driving problems of my own since leaving Sofia this first morning — leaving Sofia being the main one. The road map Hertz has provided is missing all but the main routes, and has no inset of the capital to help me plot my way out of its extensive grid of boulevards. Few people speak English, the road signage is appalling, and mostly in Cyrillic, if it’s there at all. I’ve no choice but to master this unfamiliar script, and in record time, starting with that handful of life-saving characters that are the same as our Latin ones.

Which is why, back on the main road south, I’ve barely time to admire the white rapids of the river and the beautiful Struma Valley as I scan the road for six-character place signs ending “TE”: they should lead me to Rupite, a famed pilgrimage site set in the shallow bowl of a collapsed volcano. I arrive among tended country gardens where matrons cheerfully poach themselves to a salmon pink in mineral baths. Families picnic among the rising steam of the thermal ponds, while aged couples fill plastic containers with the health-giving water. I’ve come to the home and grave of Baba Vanga — revered healer, one-time oracle to the Bulgarian Politburo and, judging by the frescoes adorning her shrine, new-age bag lady. A small crowd stares through the window of BV’s ramshackle cottage as if her possessions within — moth-eaten cushions, a cane carpet-beater and a paperweight, each anciently identified by a faded yellow label — were mystically endowed. Is it just me who notices the bottle of Ballantine’s discreetly tucked down the side of her sofa?

A CONFETTI of acacia blossom cloaks the narrowing country road that leads to Melnik. I park beneath high sandy bluffs on a drowsy riverside square that might be Provençal but for the protected architecture of the 19th-century merchants’ houses. Many of these handsome timber and stone mansions, with buttressed upper floors that overhang the cobbled alleyways, have been restored as charming mehanas (cafe-restaurants) and family hotels, such as the Boliarka. The staff here, typically, speak no English, but this small hotel has neat (if hardly spacious) bedrooms, fully functioning ensuite bathrooms and a winningly convivial bar area hung with trophy deer heads. There’s no enduring the gimcrack pretensions — ghastly food served on stained damask, chandeliers but no light bulbs, dribbling showers — that too often pass for accommodation in the more hard-core former communist countries.

Ruined churches further up the valley testify to the place’s prosperous past until its abandonment in the upheavals of the 19th century. A path leads through a wind-sculpted landscape of tottering sandstone formations — menhirs, minarets, steeples and pyramids — to another monastery, at nearby Rozhen. Swallows are swooping by the time I get back to Melnik. I settle myself in the courtyard of a mehana where the wine, the village’s own earthy red, is served straight from the barrel in a cracked jug. Lamb kebabs, minced and delicately spiced, are spitting on an outdoor brazier to remind me of the predominant notes of neighbouring Greece and Turkey in the cuisine. They’re there in the explosively fresh parsley and tomato salads, and in the yoghurt, cucumber and garlic dip the Greeks call tzatziki and the Turks cacik; but the Bulgarian snezhanka trumps them both with its welcome sprinkling of crushed walnuts. Tell me you could eat and drink this well for less than £4 per head anywhere else in Europe, and I’d like to know where.

In the course of my visit, I take in towns named after Macedonian revolutionaries, such as Gotse Delchev and the spa resort of Sandanski. I pass horse-drawn carts, while black BMWs with tinted windows — signature of the feared bortsi, Bulgaria’s gangster untouchables — pass me. I fail to reach some places on my itinerary; the sheer depth of the potholes on the mountain approach to the park north of Belitsa, where brown bears rescued from miserable existences dancing for tourists are cared for, eventually forces me to turn back.

Then my stay is at an end. I’m sufficiently au fait by now to sneak in one last attraction — the magnificent medieval frescoes at Boyana church, another World Heritage Site — before making for the airport. But Bulgaria has a final trick up its self-drive sleeve. The ring road has no signposts to the airport, though it has a great many roadside prostitutes. Bulgaria is feeling like a lobster pot from which I may never escape when I happen on a police check — a real one — where a helpful officer finally sends me on my way. A lucky drive, then, but a memorably enjoyable one as well.

Travel brief

Travel brief: Jeremy Seal was a guest of Regent Holidays (0870 499 0911, www.regent-holidays.co.uk), the only UK operator to arrange tailor-made fly-drive holidays in Bulgaria. A nine-day package starts at £560pp, based on two sharing, including B&B accommodation in three- and four-star hotels, flights and car hire.

Going it alone? Bulgarians speak little English and have limited experience of independent tourists, so it’s certainly simpler to arrange your trip through Regent. If you want to go it alone, fly to Sofia from Heathrow with British Airways (0870 850 9850, www.ba.com; from £150) or Hemus Air (020 7637 5654, www.hemusair-uk.com); from Gatwick with Bulgaria Air (020 7637 7637, www.air.bg); or from Luton with Wizz Air (www.wizzair.com).

Europcar (0870 607 5000, www.europcar.co.uk) has a week’s inclusive car hire from £160; or try Hertz (0870 844 8844, www.hertz.co.uk) or Holiday Autos (0870 400 4461, www.holidayautos.co.uk).

Hotels and guesthouses can be booked online at www.bulgaria-hotels.com or www.discover-bulgaria.com. You’ll need a guidebook, too. Try The Rough Guide to Bulgaria or Lonely Planet Bulgaria (both £13.99).

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