Bulgaria

Entering Bulgaria over the Danube River

The highway tunnels under the city in Veliko Tarnovo.

Life's a beach at the Black Sea, and just to note the water is very blue.

The strange alphabet makes for a bit of language barrier, which way do we go?

Ken takes a ride back in time in Shiroka Laka, as he tests his skills riding up cobblestone roads.

The landscape is beautiful, and the many trails are well marked.

We arrived in the forest at mushroom picking time, this lot brought the picker 6 dollars an average days pay for many Bulgarians.

Traditional dress and musical instrument (a bagpipe made from sheep hide) of the country folk.

We didn't pay for much water because there were hundreds of roadside mineral water taps.

Nothing like a good hike on a fall day!



You know those vacations you take where you are looking forward to something for a long time building up an anticipation only to be let down when you finally get there? After talking to our friend Ivo (from Bulgaria) in Brazil last year we were looking forward to a week or so in Bulgaria of eating, drinking and enjoying a lot of friendly folk and we were definitely not disappointed.

Our first stop in Bulgaria was Veliko Tarnovo and the Pink Bakery (a real bakery before it bought by an Brit and renovated into a guest house) with a garden patio, and a room overlooking a town square and the gorges surrounding the city. We spent a good couple of days here wandering the city and the huge castle over looking it. While we were at V. Tarnovo it was getting geared up for the Worlds Arm Wrist Wrestling Championship. Wouldn't you know it, we ran into a few guys from the Canadian team so they and Ken swapped a few stories (you know Ken used to "pull", as they call it, back in his younger years). We also met a great Aussie couple, Val and Shane, a couple around our age doing a world travel thing for about 2 years via train, busand whatever...We had a couple of dinners and talked about our travels- past, present and future-Australia is definitely in our plans.

Next it was off to the Black Sea, where the water is really quite blue not black and is not near as salty as some. We had a bit of a dilemma here because we found an all inclusive resort offering a nights stay for 50 euros...for two, and we were spending about that much on a regular daily basis. It was very tempting to stop for a few days and over indulge but a quick rock, paper scissors settled it for us and we were off. We probably would have been to stuffed and hungover to ride for days anyway!:(

A day or two after leaving the Black Sea we stopped for lunch at the quite little town of Shiroka Laka and left two days later. Cobblestone streets patched with cow pies, awesome hiking, and on our last night we stopped at a restaurant that had a folk singer and musician playing a bag pipe. What a hoot! We ate, drank cognac (pliska) and danced a jig with the Bulgaria tourists. I guess the entertainers were actually famous and had writen and recorded their own music, one song had actually been played on a pace shuttle?!!?

Next it was south into the Perin Mountains where we spent the night in a retro 70's hotel at the summit, because it is the end of the season here we had the whole place to ourselves. The hiking was great! Bulgaria has a fantastic hiking system with thousands of trails, all well marked, and many have huts along the way in the mountains where you can spend the night or just have a meal. The room was 18 dollars, the dinner was 7.50 (including beer) and breakfast was 3, all for two people!!!Crazy!!! Even the rain that had started couldn't dampen our spirits. As we rode out of the mountains and down into Greece we looked over our shoulders and waved a fond goodbye to Bulgaria and knew we wouldn't forget it soon.