Minotel Rodopi Plovdiv

I am going to start with the gawry bits first as a warning to anyone who reads this.

1. Be wary of hotels.com as they told us we had paid for our room when we booked and we subsequently got chased by the Guesthouse after we had left - for nonpayment! Thankfully they had our email address so did not have to call the Police to track us down! Everything seemed to be resolved but took several days, lots of emails and many hours until we found it wasn't and ...

... 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 ...

... and wood shuttered homes. We had a look in an interesting icon museum which featured many murals of St George and the dragon. We also went into a the Church of St Constantine and Elena which although very plain from the outside was highly decorated inside. We had dinner at one of the outdoor cafes and then went back to our air conditioned hotel room to cool down.

... notes out of his wallet as keepsakes and the he was gone. The rest of the journey was routine although we did wonder for a bit if we were on the right bit of the train when it split in two just before the border. Fortunately we were and soon we arrived at our destination of Plovdiv. There was no specific reason why we had chosen Bulgaria's second city to stay we had just heard from a few people that it was nicer than the capital Sofia and it was a bit nearer Turkey. Our directions to ...

... pottered on till dark and being without decent maps of the capital city Sofia were unable to find a campsite so at 8pm after treacherous roads and dodgy drivers all around us in the city of Sofia we headed out of town toward Plovdiv, pulled into a service station and had pizza and watched part of the Eurovision song contest on the café telly. Then we slept in our van ( along with another parked car and motorhome ) and called it a night. Actually we slept ok considering.

... one that you can't get rid of for eight or so bloody hours. Geoff and Bec also managed to put in an appearance, bringing with them the dance floor destroying, Corey and it was great to see them again after a whole 12 months. Actually, just about the entire Marsh clan, as well as some managed to put in an appearance at one time or another. Rob and Jackie were also there, Schmal made it as well and Mike's brother in law Steve came over for a visit and between all of us, we ...

... a lot of garbages and the edge of a bridge was collapsed. I even saw some stray dogs around the city. As a matter of course, there was no TI office. They shouldn't show their city to tourists. In the city market, I was scared by a burgar vender to buy a kebab. Honestly, I was fed up with Sofya. However I had to kill time there to take a train to Greece. What is more, the train was one hour late and smelly inside, although the ...

... the President of Bulgaria!!!!!! complete with secret service etc, but he allowed people to come close and shake hands as he walked through the center, I have some pics but they are on my phone so I will have to wait until I get back to the uk to download them, still not often you get to see the President of a big country. I may visit the aviation museum later today or maybe leave it until one day next week, tonight we will watch sunset from the top ...

... on all sides by ugly concrete blocks. Sheesh. The old town though is very fun. It is all old wooden houses which lean over one another and the cobbled streets. On my second day there i went out hiking past a series of monastaries which lead up into the side of the mountains. Some of the monastaries there have been cut out of the cliff side and are very interesting. Plus there are great views into the mountains themselves. I also hiked up to a fortress overlooking ...

... reading all the signs to myself, trying to master this foreign language. For example, Plovdiv is written (Pi)(lambda)oB(delta)iB. It doesn't do it justice to type out the Greek letters, but hopefully you can see how interesting deciphering the code can be. All across the country, in every city even, there are buildings that are halfway built or crumbling, and factories that are now abandonned, remnants of the Communist era. There are no plans to demolish these buildings or to ...