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

Kruševac to Niš

Today was another very interesting day of cycling.  The weather was a perfect 45 to 70 during the day with light winds.  We continue through south-central Serbia and are in a very rural area when we are not going through the villages.  We rode 53 miles and ascended 2400 feet.

The first stop on the way out of town was to take a picture of a MIG fighter

We had a significant but very gradual climb and were treated to beautiful vistas

We started to see a litlle more Fall colors in the tree's.  We are now in about the same latitude as home, but the climate is different (warmer)

This just does not get old from the seat of a bicycle

After a big climb, you expect a big downhill.  We did not get that today.  The trail turned to mud.  There was 2-3 miles of these conditions.  It was brutal and the mud between the tires and the fenders (call mudguards in many countries) made progress very slow.

Once we got out, we cleaned out the mud with fingers and sticks and headed to the car was

In our last town, I saw these Serbian lawn mowers in the middle of a small town.  We stopped about noon and the children were getting out of school.  We have not see any other long distance cyclists in 3 days, so I think we were an oddity.  As we sat in the local baker and had our daily burek, several of the young boy's got up the courage to ask where we were from, where we were going, how far we had ridden and even how old are you.  It was fun.

Velika Plana to Kruševac

Today was an excellent day to cycle.  We rode 65 miles and climbed 2000'.  We had nice temperatures, starting about 50 and ending at 70 degrees.  Winds were light and I may have detected a slight tailwind at the end.

While the sites were not spectacular, the views and riding were just nice.  We had light traffic on the generally good roads.  When the roads were not good, they were potholled and pretty jaring, but the views made it all seem better.  It reminded me of riding around Sonoma Valley, without the cars and people.

This was an old train at a former rail hub town.

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This is the kind of views we had for most of the day.  You can see the vineyards in the background

And every once and a while you pass a beautiful church

and then you see another

More beautiful fields.  That is the Danube in the valley

Then you have lunch.  For the equivalent of 80 cents, you get an eighth of one of these burek's

Rob and I called this a Serbian Uber.  That is the farmer driving and his wife in the wagon

How would you like to have had this in your playground as a child?

We found a few remnants of the communist rule along the way

We tried to find out the meaning of this statue, but with no luck.  It certainly was interesting.