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Monday, April 9. 2007Belated Bulgaria Blogging
Well, it's belated no more. OK, yes, it's still rather late.
Anyway, check out the Bulgaria category for the latest installment. Edit: Pictures now online also! Wednesday, September 27. 2006More EU members
I'm glad we made it to Bulgaria at least before they and Romania join the EU. We visited Czech before and after they joined and the difference was quite visible - more money, less culture as a quick summary.
On the plus side, perhaps the worst standard of roads we have ever driven on will now be drivable by people who own their own cars (ours was leased so it didn't worry us too much!) And yes I know there's not much Eastern Europe blog online yet - it's on the list of things to get done :( Saturday, April 22. 2006Leaving Bulgaria
(written 9/4/2007)
We rose and went downstairs to a delicious breakfast of local specialties, all explained to us again - homemade blueberry jam, deep fried pancakes, cheeses, wow, what a change after some of the things we had made do with in recent times. After a bit more of a chat, we assured the friendly girl that we would look at the handcrafts that the town had to offer - she wanted us to help the town's economy, not just hers personally. So, after a difficult car extraction process helped by some of the locals who had appeared to park around us, leaving the minimal possible room, we drove around village, parking in the center for a look around. We wandered randomly through the friendly little back-streets, populated mostly by local craft-ware shops, but also interestingly with a high density of what appeared to be funeral notices pinned everywhere. Not many of the shops were open at this time, but we picked one and grabbed some nice little cooking and serving pots, similar to the ones we had eaten out of for the last few days. After this, and a few photos, we loaded the car and drove out to the main road again to continue our journey West. Heading along the "main road", we skirted around Sofia which we had decided not to go into, and then carried on North-West towards the Serbian border. There, we found massive truck queues of at least a kilometer, which after observing some locals we decided we didn't need to wait for. Before crossing, we tried to change our money but there was nowhere to do it, so we got in (faster) queue and headed across to Serbia and Montenegro. Friday, April 21. 2006Around Veliko, on to Koprivstica
(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. Enjoying Bulgaria
Typing this from a hostel in Veliko Tarnovo, one of the old capitals of Bulgaria. Despite the roads which are at times no better than a dirt goat track with foot deep potholes, yet are advertised as major highways, this is a really cool, mostly undiscovered country. We have felt like no other foreign tourist has made it to certain places on a couple of occasions now.
I'll see how we go at getting them to let us plug the laptop in, but for now we're still safe, the car is most likely in one piece and we will probably enter Serbia and Montenegro tomorrow. Thursday, April 20. 2006From Plovdiv to Veliko Tarnovo
(written 9/4/2007)
A bit of a shambles of a morning this one, which Liz will tell you about in person if you ask her. We grabbed some bread things from street seller for our busy morning, and set off for a wander through town. We stopped for coffee in the main square of what had obviously once been a fantastically beautify city. The gardens we had walked through to get there were really impressive, but, just like the country's roads, it was obvious that a lot of money was going to be needed to make this place back into what it had once been. There were ruins in the main street, loose paving stones everywhere, but no matter where you looked, happy people all around, with a determination to fix the country in their eyes. Up to what we thought was internet café, it turned out they were actually an internet provider - at least the girl there could speak enough English to tell me that! But the sign at the front clearly said internet café, which now has a universal meaning. Except in Plovdiv, it seems. Heading up the hill, we wandered up into the cobbled old town, where most of the buildings were still attractive and had been kept in a decent state of repair. There were plenty of older buildings to see, including a church we had a wander through. Further through the old-town backstreets, we found our way up to the top where we looked over the city and right down into what appeared to be a Roman amphitheater. Back down the hill to the busiest shopping street, stopping at a street vendor for a fridge magnet, and then found our way slowly back to the car using GPS, which saw us wandering through a nice park. We drove out heading North, with not a great distance planned for the day's driving. The roads were better than the day before, but still quite terrible - don't every bring a non-rental car here until you have assurance that the roads have improved! Winding through the country-side between the major cities, Tim kept trying to navigate us around towns, but we just got ourselves stuck back behind the same truck who had gone straight through! On these back-road diversions though, we stumbled across some great Soviet monuments, most of which made little sense to those of us born outside the empire, but the meaning was always pretty clear - Soviet power is the way to go! We had to get across the Stara Planina, a mountain range cutting across the middle of the country, and to do so we followed a winding pass up for a long time. The roads degraded again, followed closely by the temperature, and before long we were driving through very low visibility fog. Again this was some dangerous driving, although we managed to grab a few photos when it was safe to do so - not of the views, because there were none due to the thick fog. Down other side and out of the cloud, we pushed further on to Veliko Tarnovo. This gorgeous little town built into the turn of a river was once the capital of Bulgaria, but now it's at the centre of a property boom for Western Europeans wanting a cheap slice of land to retire on. We found the i, parked, and went in for a chat. They phoned the new hostel in town Hikers Hostel to see if their twin room was available, which lucky for us it was. It was held for us, and now the only challenge was to find the place. After a few tries, we got the car up to right spot on hill through tightly winding alley ways, to a parking spot a little way down from the hostel. From there we walked through the back streets with loose cobbles to the hostel itself. The place was run by a friendly girl who was genuinely interested in our stories, but eventually we needed to dump our stuff, and wandered down to the old town to have a look around. There we found nice restaurant overlooking the valley, which was obviously not of the traditional style (in keeping with the revitalisation of the town). We ate huge big platefuls of pizza and other food, taking in the amazing views across the valley and the myriad of cultures gathered around us in this popular place. On our way back to our room, we stopped for a coffee in a café full of young locals, which was a nice change and a way to see how their lives play out. The famous castle across the other side of the valley runs a lightshow, but only when enough tourists pay money for it to happen. The locals sit there each night waiting for that to happen, but on this particular night it didn't. We hadn't paid so can't really complain, but we intended to explore that place the next day anyway. Wednesday, April 19. 2006The "scenic route" to Plovdiv
(written 9/4/2007)
We managed to sleep somehow on the crazy bed, and awoke to grab a coffee at the bar next door. We'd heard that a burek was the type of food we should be sampling in these parts, so I went inside to order a couple. The poor guy there had just opened, and I thought his response gesticulations meant that there was none avalable today (he did seem like the only staff there). We sat around for a while longer deciding what to do for the day, and were about to leave when the guy walked over with two piping hot pastries! We thanked and paid him before munching away on what was basically a cheesy pastry, but if that's what the specialty is we'll happily eat it. We set off for a walk around town looking at the sand cliffs. Our rough plan was to follow some directions to the town's oldest cellar, but we didn't find it. No matter, we saw plenty of crazy hill-side architecture and a eccentric mix of ancient things and other things built with new money. We had to trace our road back out of town, looping down the main road before eventually heading east for the day's journey. The most convenient road marked on our map was a little white one (the road density is pretty low in most of these countries - similar to outback Australia), which perhaps should have tipped us off, but once we had committed there was no turning back. Kilometer by kilometer, the road seemed to just get worse. At one point we were driving along a valley, but were diverted up and over mountain passes where they hadn't built the continuous section of road yet. Then a little while longer, way back down to join the original path of the road. In some parts it appeared experimental roads had been built, only to be abandoned when it was all too hard. We were pretty confident that very few tourists had been along this road ever, mostly because it wasn't really a road, but also because there was absolutely no way a tour bus could do it. In some sections there were reasonable amounts of locals getting around as if this were just all normal to them. The most memorable part was one village that seriously looked like it was bombed. Sides of the road were totally missing, mud-slides had taken sections out, and we had to think carefully and dodge the locals before making our slow progress through this tiny town. For all this whinging about the roads, you'd think it was a horrible place. But quite the contrary. The lack of other non-locals made it feel quite special, and the scenery was spectacular. We were climbing up the mountains, with more and more snow about the place, and our roads though horrible to drive on were very scenic as they wound their way about the place. We stopped to make tea up in the cool mountains at one stage, just taking in the isolation and the goat track that had got us here, and no doubt was our only way out. Obviously, it took a long while to get anywhere, but eventually we made it through to Siroka laka, a little village that Lonely Planet pointed out, where we grabbed some coffees in a local café, and admired the scenery of the stream running through town. Turning north, we drove through an alpine region where there was snow still on ground and plenty of people taking advantage of the country's cheap ski areas. If you are a European with a method of getting here, it's much cheaper than other countries. Continuing north on bigger road which was still windy, often one (usable) lane, we noted that most crazy local drivers just ploughed through the devastation, oblivious to the damage that will cause if they ever upgrade to cars not based on Soviet tanks, overtaking on blind corners, etc. Quite tired from the effort, we made it eventually to Plovdiv (wikipedia), Bulgaria's "second city". It wasn't too hard to find our chosen place to stay, Queen Mary, where we got a room in this quaint little hostel. Eventually heading out, we looked for restaurant which is built in an old bomb bunker a few streets away. We thought we had found it but it was actually a cave that only had pizzery bread things and a variety of drinks on offer. Still, we had a couple of those and enjoyed the strange surroundings, despite the kids parties going on all around us. As we were leaving, content to not have eaten much and just seek out a bigger breakfast the next day, we found the original bunker right place next door - it had huge thick metal doors, and was built under a cliff face. There was a band set up inside, although nobody ever started playing, and we decided to have a couple of courses of dinner there now that we had found the place. The local food was great, but after a while we set out into the heavy rain to find our way back to the hostel. Tuesday, April 18. 2006Into Bulgaria - Melnik
(written 9/4/2007)
(Continued from Macedonia.) Compared with entering our first non-EU country Macedonia, we had an easy time getting through the border this time around, at Zlatarevo. The car's wheels got a bit of a bath as they attempted to get some kind of pest or other killed by getting us to drive through a couple of puddles, but then we were on our way. Straight away the place seemed much prettier - nice trees, and noticably less garbage around the place. But the roads. Oh lord, the roads. Truly crappy crappy roads, constantly keeping you on the ball to deal with whatever the next corner may throw at you. We'd checked before leaving Sydney that our car insurance actually covered driving through these Eastern Bloc countries, and only two leasing companies out of the five or so would actually let you do it. That's not to do with the crime - it's the quality of the roads. No matter, we had a piece of paper saying we were fine, and it was someone else's car! As we bumped further into the country, out of the blue we saw a tortoise crossing road. The locals must have thought us rather strange, as I pulled the car over and Liz ran back to put the poor thing off the road, just saving it from huge truck charging down through the pot holes. No doubt he would have ploughed through it, happy for something to fill in a hole and smooth out his journey a bit. Not far into the south-west corner of the country, we drove to Melink, known as a wine town. There's no pretentiousness here, with the wine being sold in plastic jugs and widely claimed by the locals to be "hangover free". That was enough of an enticement for us to pick it as a place to spend our first night in this new country. The town has a little creek down the middle with (crappy) roads down either side, and the whole thing is set deep inside of high sand cliffs. There was a little bit of a feeling of touristyness about the place, but not much compared to where we had been only a week or so earlier. To stay, we picked a funny little place from Lonely Planet with rickety stairs and by far the entire trip's worst bed, but the owner gave us wine to welcome us there, as we struggled with a bit of German (more him than us, actually) to work out rates and the complexities of keys and the like, in what was obviously his house. The bar downstairs proved popular with the locals, perhaps more for lack of competition at this time of year in such a tiny town, but it was cosy enough. We spent the evening sitting outside on veranda drinking wine and eating local food, listening to conversations all around us in different languages, before heading upstairs to brave the bed. The matteress was shaped like a V - everyone in the middle! upstairs to rickety bed
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