Hotel Ego Plovdiv

... we put on our itinerary but did not book accommodation, transport etc in advance. We initially felt in the planning stages that we would see how tired we were and how much we could cram into a day in Sofia.<br><br>Going to Plovdiv was to prove to be one of the best things we have done. The Old Town was incredible and we stayed bang in the middle of it. The cobbled streets and incredible restored buildings were like nowhere we have seen in a while. There ...

... to explore the old town by 1900. After that I went back to the train station and looked for a place to eat. I found it but its menu was in Bulgarian only. Luckily Maria on the next table helped me to order some salad, soup and fish and a bottle of wine, so we had a nice conversation while sharing the wine. She is a drummer from Plovdiv but living in Vienna now. We talked about politics ...

9th June<br>Rila Monastery to Plovdiv<br>Sunny 31 degrees<br><br>We left the lovely Rila Monastery to drive to Plovdiv. It involved some backtracking to near Sofia and then on to the motorway to Plovdiv. Unfortunately, once again, the area is very smoggy and spoils what would be lovely views of the countryside and mountains. We arrived in Plovdiv and found our hotel ...

... they provided before heading down to the station to book our train tickets. For some reason the international train ticket office isn't in Plovdiv station but quite a way away down the road. I attempted some bad Bulgarian without much luck before we found someone with some English to show us where it was. This was when we fell victim for our first scam of the trip. Not being able to pay in Euro or credit card we had to get some Bulgarian Lev to pay for the train. Finding a exchange, the ...

Saturday 16th May. We packed up and were on the road reasonably early and headed towards the border of Croatia where we crossed the border and drove through past Zagreb and towards Serbia. All was good and roads were fine though we had to pay tolls along the motorways we soon added up but it was a quicker way to drive there than the free regional roads. At the border of Serbia things got interesting as the border controls insisted we had to pay insurance as they said ...

... him out of there. Once we got him outside, he appeared to have calmed down and we spoke to the manager and managed to pursuade him to call off the police, who had thankfully not yet arrived. Meanwhile, James was spouting some gibberish about people we'd never heard off and in general, being an ****. Eventually, we decided that the best course of action would be to call a cab, and Geoff (who was the only person not in favour of knocking him out) would take him home so that the ...

... our keys. Then we were off to the Sicersi station at 9pm and arrived there in 10 minutes. We had a sleeper cabin to ourselves, and it was surprisingly well-designed and not as smelly and grimmy as we had expected. We did not have a third person, so we did not feel jammed. I lifted the desk and found a sink underneathe- nifty! Lying on the bed, I could see the civilization outside, and the wind blew on my feet and the curtains ...

... of an old Roman amphitheater dating from the 6th century BC. The contrast is amazing. Tonight we are off to dinner with two more of Iva's friends from this area....one friend was a rowing camp roommate of hers from the years when she competed in the World Junior Rowing Championships in Poland. Another row is planned for tomorrow morning but it will have to be at Lions Club time...5:30AM due to the miles we have to travel tomorrow. Cheers!!

Very slowly I'm starting to speak hrvatski [Croatian] and Ursa can read Cyrillic letters. We were sitting at the ancient roman amphi theatre and were doing, what we usually did; talking, while there was a practice for evening's performance was going on. The theatre was smaller as we expected, but considering the fact that I've never seen one live, i would call it pretty decent. The thing ...

... the day. We went up the hills, down them, around them and on and on...By parks, fountains, churches, museums, etc. I tried to retrace these steps today, for the most part successfully. It felt as though I were reliving a dream however. Yesterday felt almost surreal in the dark. Today I could see the brick exposed in buildings from wear...how uneven the streets are...At one of the overlooks I could see a haze covering the city, like most big cities across the globe. Breathing in the ...