Happy Again

Zagrazhden to Shivstov

1

105km

Best bit: sunrise

Worst: none

No one was about at 7am this morning so I found a couple of eggs in the hotel fridge, toasted some stale bread, and scoffed the lot before the kitchen lady woke up and told me off. I was glad I hadnt seen the state of teh kitchen before I had dinner the night before, otherwise my appetite might have slackened...

Todays riding, mostly flat, no surprises. Cycled through the same motley selection of worn out villages, buildings crumbling, groups of old men and women doing nout, and withered people in the fields doing backbreaking labour by hand.

Coming up into Shivstov I was surprised to be met by a modern town centre, recently renovated. Even better, the guest house on the high street is brand new, and there is a cafe with a terrace on the first floor to enjoy the evening sun. Luxury!

Jordan and Jordan Local tour guides! Thanks Guys.

Extra bit:

I am having a lot of fun wiht the complete lack of being able to communicate. Nearly no one speaks English and of course I know about two words of bulgarian (although i can add to this my few words of Czech and Russian which seem to help!)

Anyway, despite this weakness, at lunch I found a little cafe and was able to point on the cyrillic menu at a picture of a tuna sandwich covered with juicy salad eggs olives etc (yum yum). What could be simpler? What arrived was a SPAM sandwich with chips inside plus a tomato. And whats more, it was delicious!!! Oh well...

At the internet cafe this evening a couple of schoolkids dragged themselves away from Warcraft to help translate and persuade the owner to allow me to upload photos. Hurrah for the Bulgarian education system otherwise no pics on the webiste today. Anyhow, they then kindly took me on a whizz tour of the city to the roman fort which overlooks the town and which I probably wouldnt have found otherwise. I popped back there after dinner by myself and sat on some reconstructed ampitheatre steps just below. It was a great place to collect ones thoughts.

scenic route

Good hotel at Svishtov

Industrial flowers