Bulgaria - Week 25

Monday 3rd December 2018

After hightailing it out of Serbia ...

... we found ourselves in Plovdiv, the second largest city in Bulgaria. It was originally a Tracian settlement before becoming a major Roman City. It later fell into Byzantine & Ottoman hands before becoming part of Bulgaria. It’s also Europe’s oldest continuously inhabited city. We loved it and would recommend a visit to anyone. It has plenty of Roman remains including a stadium & amphitheatre, an old town and lots of cobbled streets.

Our first stop was the old town and the Ancient Roman Theatre. We paid the 10 lev to enter (approx £5) and spent more than an hour looking round. It was amazing to just sit there and wonder at how many people had sat in the same spot over the centuries.

The old town was fascinating too with some unusual buildings like the Lamartin House.

We’ve walked on lots of cobbled stones through the countries we’ve visited, but these were something else!

Walking back down the hill and into the shopping area, they were still excavating parts of a Roman Stadium. They’re aim is to make an underground street called the Museum of Ancient Philippopolis, so visitors can see what Plovdiv must have looked like when people like Hadrian ruled the country.

After warming up with a coffee in Costa, and eating our first mince pie of the season, we walked into the Kapana district to look at the street art. What a great place.

We parked in the secure car park for 5 lev per night (approximately £2.40). We even treated ourselves to a meal out. Rabbit Risotto with wild mushrooms and dried tomatoes, complete with Bunny ears lol, BBQ ribs, blueberry cheesecake and a creme brûlée plus drinks ... £16 all in, wow!! It was delicious.

We were overdue a washing day but couldn’t find a launderette. On the park4night app it said there was a place we could take the washing called refresh next to the singing fountain. So after getting a taxi, we dropped 3 bags of washing off and carried on to the old town.

Plovdiv had lots of lovely fresh fruit and vegetable stalls which were all full to bursting with produce. Think we’re going to love Bulgaria!

It’s really lovely to have Rachel at Hymer Eriba as a back up back in England, and after talking to her about the ECU problem in Serbia, she booked us into a Hymer Dealer in Sofia.

So, after collecting all the washing from “Refresh”, all dried and folded beautifully, we drove to the Hymer dealers. They let us park there overnight and even offered us free electric hook up and water. Our contact, Stephanina, was wonderful. Translating everything the mechanic told us and after a cup of coffee and a clean bill of health, we were back on the road again.

Stephanina had recommended that we visit Belogradchik and the Magura Caves, and I had wanted to visit Rila Monastery as it was a UNESCO World Heritage site. So off we went to Rila.

When we set off, the outside temperature was up to 9oC, but by the time we got up into the snow capped mountains, it was -1oC. (I was pleased because Andy was threatening to wear his shorts if it got into double figures lol).

The long and winding road up to it was excellent and well worth the effort.

Lonely Planet said ... Rising out of a forested valley in the Rila Mountains, Bulgaria’s most famous monastery has been a spiritual centre for over 1000 years. Rila Monastery’s fortress-like complex engulfs 8800 sq m, and within its stone walls you’ll find remarkably colourful architecture and religious art. Visitors can’t fail to be struck by its elegant colonnades, archways striped in black, red and white, and the bright yellow domes of its main church, beneath which dance apocalyptic frescoes. All of this splendour, against a backdrop of mist-swirled mountains, has made Rila Monastery hugely popular among both pilgrims and curious visitors ... It really was that good!

There are 3 parking bays just before the entrance where you can park for free or, if you park in the car park, like we did, the attendant asks you for 10 lev. Apart from that it was absolutely free to enter. You could only stay on the ground level as it’s a working Monastery and you were also allowed in the church, but you’re not supposed to take photos inside - whoops!!

We continued on our journey towards Belogradchik. As it was over 170 miles away and because it was getting dark and we were hungry, we pulled over in a car park in Gintsi for the night. By morning the temperature had dropped to -9oC!! Harriet didn’t let us down though. We were cozy inside and nothing had frozen up. After hot showers all round and breakfast, we back on the road.

I love it when Andy’s driving and we can watch the scenery change before our eyes. Andy’s happiest when he’s behind the wheel, so it’s a win win situation. We’re not called truckin’n’lookin for nothing 😉

We reached Belogradchick by a very curly road. In fact we did wonder if it was Bulgaria’s answer to the Trollstigen Pass! The houses and blocks of flats looked run very down. With huge pot holes in the road to negotiate and abandoned cars and lorries parked everywhere, first impressions weren’t good. In fact, so much so, we decided to turn round and head for Magura Caves instead. Andy called Belogradchik a “one eyed town” lol, meaning it was better to look at it with one eye shut.

We were amazed to see the caves open even on a Friday in December. Climbing the steps to the entrance, the lady took 20 lev from us (£9.15), handed us a paper leaflet with a map and turned on the cave lights. She told us to walk 2km to the end and 2km back again. I’m sure in its hay day it must have been a thriving concern, but since it was developed into a tourist attraction in 1961 the place looked as it hadn’t been updated since.

Anyway, even on our own, we managed to find the cave paintings which we’d come to see.

The leaflet said the original pre historic artwork was from the Neolithic, Eneolithic and early Bronze Age. The paintings represented dancing women figures, dancing hunting men, disguised men, large variety of animals, chess boards, suns, stars, tools and plants!!!

On exiting the cave we met a couple of Bulgarian lads who said hello. They asked us if we’d been inside the cave and started chatting to us about the Belogradchik rocks. They made them sound so good we decided to try again. What we needed to do was to put Belogradchik Fortress in to Google Maps and not just the town. So 25km up the road we were parked in the car park.

We’re so glad we didn’t miss this place. Although the light was not very good for taking photos, the views were spectacular!! Neither of us had ever seen anything like it! If we hadn’t known where we were, we could have sworn we were looking at one of the National Parks in America!!
Just fantastic!!

The drive to Veliko Tărnovo was uneventful, apart from coming across a car crash and ending up following a car pulling a small trailer full of pigs around the back streets to get past the altercation.

We arrived in Veliko Tărnovo around 7pm so stopped at a McDonalds for food (if you can call it that) and to use their free WiFi to download some more TV from Netflix to watch later.