Plovdiv to Haskovo

I do enjoy the point in a bike tour when you can cycle nearly 60 miles and climb nearly 2000 feet and be in by 3 PM, without feeling tired.

We had a very nice ride today.  The weather was perfect, the sun was shining,  the roads were not bad and the scenery was pretty good. 

We headed across the Thracian plains today with farm fields on out left and Rhodope Mountains on our right.

The towns were generally nice.  We stopped for lunch and had our new favorite,  a banitsa (pastry with cheese filling).

War Memorial for the Balkan wars and WWI

Plovdiv

Despite only putting in two days since our last rest day, we decided to take a day off and explore Plovdiv.  The city was is reported to be the longest continuously settled area in Europe, with over 8000 years of history.  In addition to a rich history of being self ruled by the Bulgarians, the area was heavily influenced by the Romans and Ottomans'.

We headed off with a guide to visit  Asen’s Fortress, and Bachkovo Monastery.  Both had over 1000 years of history.

The Church on the hill and fortress ruins on the right

Looking back at the Thracian Valley

The church was not destroyed by the Ottomans' who occupied the area from the 15th to 19th century

The Bulgarian Orthodox churches inside the monastery

One of 23 chapels in the mountains surrounding the fortress and monastery

The second half of our day was a guided tour of the city of Plovdiv.  Plovdiv was selected as the Bulgarian host of the European Capital of Culture 2019, so there was lots to see.

This is a pretty amazing shot of the old and the new.  The Roman city on the left remains under most of the modern city of Plovdiv.  When possible, it is being excavated and restored.

The seats are part of a Roman stadium that seated over 30,000 spectators.  Most of the stadium is under the center city pedestrian area.  The picture shows another era with the Minaret from the Mosque as a remnant of the Ottoman occupation.

The old town is comprised of beautiful homes from the mid 19th century, built in the Bulgarian Revival Style. 

The Roman theater seating 3500 is still used today.  Fortunately, it is a music venue and no longer a gladiatorial site

Momin Prohod to Plovdiv

We rode 59 miles today.  It was pretty flat and truth be told, a little downhill.  Winds were variable and as a result, we averaged over 14 mph.  Not bad on a loaded bike.  The temperatures started a little cold and remained overcast throughout the day.  The roads were pretty good, although we ran into some traffic as we entered Bulgaria's second largest city of Plovdiv.

We were out on the plains today.  We went through a lot of small towns.  What was striking was the variation in the towns.  We woke up in a small resort town featuring  mineral water springs, which I enjoyed very much at our small hotel pools the night before.  It was very nice.  Some of the other towns were quite different.  The cafe's (featuring either coffee or beer) had a lot of men, often old (meaning our age) sitting around at all hours.  In the poorer towns, only the main road was paved.  The homes and yards are neat, but often very old and drab gray concrete.

This is an illustration of where we are today.  Hard to believe that we have traveled all the way from the coast of France to Bulgaria.  We are getting close to Istanbul.

One of the poorer town

Rob captured this picture of some local art along a canal

Rowing venue as we entered the city of Plovdiv (in the background)

Our plan in Plovdiv is to take a day off.  It is Bulgaria's second city.  It is known for tourism and a lot of historical sites, including Roman and Medieval Bulgarian.  We will go on a city tour and a tour outside the town to a fortress and monastery.  It will be the first time in a car in 7 weeks.

Sofia to Momin Prohod

After navigating our way 6 miles out of Sophia (with a metro area similar to Milwaukee) the the day was spent in rural Bulgaria.  We had high clouds and haze for most of the day and nice temperatures.   We missed our sunshine,  but it was a good cycling day.

The haze over the mountains on one of the better roads of the day

Late in the season fields 

One of the poorer roads of the day..  We learned if it says path, take a different route.

Tomorrow we are heading to Bulgarias second city, Plovida.   It has a lot of historical significance,  so we are going to take a day off to see the sites.

Sofia - Day Off

 We used our day off to see a bit of the town, clean our bikes and attend to planning the rest of the trip.  By my unverified accounts, we have traveled 2159 miles and have 463 left to go.  If all goes according the plan, we have 9 days' of cycling left and head for home two weeks from today.

Sofia certainly presented a positive image.  On the way to my run to Starbucks (really) and the Greek Bakery around the corner, I walked 500 yards into the center of the city.  At an early hour, they were setting up for the Sofia Marathon.  Although it was before the start, it was fun to see the activity associated with the event.

As is now our custom in a new large city, we went on a city tour.  The tour guide was very enthusiastic about Bulgaria (although self deprecating about the laid back attitude).  He provided a great history lesson.  Again, the weather was perfect and the Sunday pace was perfect for a day off.  The tour was in English and there were participants from all over the world.  The sites were magnificent in the sunlight and with a historical perspective.  

There was something nice about being back in an EU and NATO country over the unaligned and somewhat misaligned (in my opinion) country of Serbia.  I will remind you that Serbia is the only nation in Europe that has not condemned Russia for the invasion of Ukraine.  The drivers were weirdly aggressive too (another unsolicited opinion).

Not a big marathon, but exciting to be around

The mountains in the background - Look a little steep to cycle over, I am glad we are going the other way 

This photo shows the Roman Ruins (of which there are a lot) being towered over by the Mosque.  All the major religions are in Bulgaria

Russian Orthodox Church

I thought that this was an interesting McDonald's

The Presidential Offices - We skipped the changing of the guards

The St Alexander Nevsky Cathedral - The most iconic site in Sofia and probably Bulgaria

Pirot to Sofia, Bulgaria

On Saturday, we had a very pleasant ride from Pirot to Sofia, Bulgaria.  This is the ninth country on this trip.  All we have left is Greece (very small portion) and Turkey. Also, we had another milestone, another time zone.  This is the first time in 2000 miles that we have had to change the clock.  We are now GMT+3 (or 8 hours different than home).

We had another perfect weather day.  It is turing a little more "Fallish", which is excellent cycling weather.   Our ride was 59 miles.  As promised, Bulgaria had some of the worst roads, and to our surprise, some of the best.  We cheated by going on the newly paved 4 lane (with excellent shoulders) rather than to ride on the cobblestones that we were pretty sure had been installed by the Ottomans' in the 15th century.

The last town before crossing into Bulgaria

I was not kidding about the bad roads - we are very lucky it was dry

Sofia from the foothills

Our idea of the perfect after cycling snack, the original Bud (from Czech Republic) and Paprika flavored potato chips

Niš to Pirot

Today was supposed to be an easy day of 42 miles.   The climbing made it challenging.  Each of those two peaks were about 1200' of climbing (about 6 miles and an hour).  On the flip side, the dowhills were very nice.  So we were in the saddle for about 4 hours.  As usual, the winds were light, the sunshine was glorious and the views spectacular.  The roads were excellent and the traffic light (and the dogs friendly).

The skull tower

We saw a very interesting display on the way out of Nis.  It was a tower of skulls.  The story goes that in the early 19th century, the Ottomans were moving on Nis.  The Serbs were badly outnumbered.  Instead of surrendering (and suffering the wrath of the invading army) the commander blew up the armory killing his men and many Turks.  The Turkish commander was so incensed that he build a tower with the skulls of over 1000 of the dead Serbs.  I have never seen anything like it.

Church in the town where Nicholas Tesla was born

The type of view we were luck to experience all day