(written 9/4/2007)
In the morning we wandered downstairs to hostel but nobody around. There was breakfast included but we didn't really want to help ourselves, so we just sat there for a while soaking up the morning.
Interestingly, they had an internet connection there - I couldn't get our laptop connected but used their computer to do some catchup and a quick blog post while we waited.
Eventually a guy we first thought must have been a guest wandered in and organised some breakfast for us, consisting of dodgy bread but huge mugs of tea which we both had a couple of to fortify for the day.
We put our things back in the car, and drove across the valley to the castle
Tsarevets on next hill which we had had views of from the hostel, only getting lost once on the way due to roadworks and poor signage. That doesn't bother us much, as long as the scenery is good.
Once in the right place, we parked payed a funny parking attendant, and set off for a look around. Signs were in German, Bulgarian and Russian!
This ancient fortification has a lot of history which we took in as we slowly wandered around, looking across the valley. A puppet show at the entrance kept the local school kids interested, but we were more laughing at them than with them, mostly do our complete non-comprehension of what was going on.
The castle has a rock where criminals were once pushed off to their demise below, plenty of ruins and a chapel in the centre with some great murals and a guide only to happy to help us find out more about the murals, in exchange for some money. We'd actually had our fill from what Lonely Planet had to say, so politely declined before wandering through the ruins and gardens some more.
Back to our car, we drove back into the centre of town, stopping lunch at Mustang Food, an American diner which was actually better than it sounds. There we had good lunch of ribs, tomatoes and potatoes, and a conversation or two with the chatty waiter, quite interested in a young couple from far away coming to visit his home town.
This place had lots of signs for Real Estate and other things in English - property was cheap by our usual standards but no doubt high by Bulgarian ones.
Before leaving, we tried to use toilets but the woman at the door ranted at us about something we had no chance of understanding, so that had to wait.
Out of Veliko, we headed west to spend our last night in Bulgaria on our way out. Like so many other times, we were "divisio-ed" (detoured) off the road we wanted to be on a few times, making progress difficult.
Up and over a mountain pass, complete with snow and more crazy Soviet monuments on the top just to remind you who is (or was) boss, all the time great scenery and landscapes all around us, before heading down other side as the rain hit us quite heavily.
Following again the guidebook, we made it to the tiny
Koprivstica, which we couldn't pronounce, but it sounded nice. A pretty town in a valley well off the main road through virgin forest land, it is split by a river. Our directions to the new place in town,
Panoramata, were almost correct, and eventually a sign with the name pointed the way. Only the road it pointed up was pretty narrow, and Liz didn't want to drive through. So, she stayed in the car while I wandered up the hill and around a bit to locate the place and chat to the owners. The man, once he heard I wanted to speak English, called his daughter in, who showed me the rooms we had a choice of. Not wanting to seem rude, but mindful of Liz waiting patiently some distance away, I let her run through all sorts of information about carpets, blankets, and how they had made two different styles of room - modern and traditional. I opted for the latter, and set off to help Liz drive up.
The gap she hadn't wanted to drive through had proved deceptive, as she had learned while waiting there, lots of locals driving past her and giving her a strange look. No matter, we soon found our way in and tightly packed the car into the parking lot of the hotel.
After unloading, we sat in the downstairs restaurant, cosy next to the log fire, reading and relaxing after another challenging day's driving.
Dinner there was a traditional affair where again the daughter got chatting with us. She ran us through the town and her family's history, and discussed how despite the ability to run to another country to make more money like so many others have done, she wants to stay to make her home town back to what it once was. Very admirable, and best of luck to her.