Category: Bulgaria

After two days of heavy driving we slowed down today. Rila Monastery was one of our must see destinations when we planned our trip. On the way into Bulgaria we skipped it to get to Sofia, and planned to make it our last stop in Bulgaria. So we carried out that plan today.

On our way out of town we stopped across the street to give François a bath. For some reason Greece does not have the automatic car washes that you see in most countries, so we took advantage of it to give François a good bath.

Driving down the A3 we were as usual one of the slowest vehicles on the autoway, but as we were leaving a tunnel a police officer gave us the signal to pull over to the side. Officer Petrov introduced himself and told me we were speeding in the tunnel because the speed limits in tunnels are 90. He then told me we were going 107, which didn’t seem right as I had the cruise control set at 97 (which I recognize is more than 90, but three cars had passed us in the tunnel). After checking our documentation he told me he was going to let us go with a warning. I had read that the Bulgarian police like to pull foreign vehicles over to check the documentation and this seems more likely as the reason we were flagged. Once he found our documents in order he sent us on our way. By the way, Officer Petrov was extremely professional throughout the encounter.

The rest of the drive was uneventful. After we parked we decided we needed to hustle as it looked like rain.

The monastery is in a beautiful mountain setting. It was founded in the late 900’s by a monk who is the patron saint of Bulgaria. When Bulgaria was in the Ottoman Empire Rila Monastery was the center of the Christian faith in Bulgaria. It is one of the most visited places in Bulgaria, and is very important cultural heritage site to modern Bulgarians.

Today the majority of the visitors were elementary school students. Like most kids of that age, the beautiful buildings were secondary to the cool snacks available on site. The cool snack today was a sweet bread called Monks Bread. For 1 Lei it was a good bargain and I bought one and it was delicious. I shared a bite with Ton and to my surprise she really liked it and asked me to get another for her. But when I got back a couple of classes of students had beat me there so we could not get another.

The exterior walls are massive and were originally developed for fortification. These days they have been converted into rooms for the monks. Some of the rooms have now been converted into a hotel which would be an interesting place to spend a night.

The monastery is one of the most beautiful buildings we have visited in the Balkans. I think we were lucky because it was not too busy so we got to take our time going thru and really enjoying the art.

The rain was coming so we headed down to our campground which was located a couple of kilometers away. As we were negotiating the last couple of hundred meters to the campground we came across a log truck loading. We got to see them use the lift on the back of the truck to load the last couple of logs before the log truck driver and I did some fancy driving so we could squeeze by each other.

When we arrived we were the only customers on site. Right after we settled the skies opened up and we ended up spending most of the rest of the day hunkered down in François listening to the rain.

We had another encounter with a snake today. We were standing next to François looking at the river when Ton looked down and jumped. At her feet there was a small snake. After all of our years camping we had never encountered snakes, but we have had two snake encounters in Bulgaria!

We are in full on road warrior mode now. We spent last night debating how many kilometers we could do in one day. After our experience with Bucharest we needed to get a chunk of miles (I know I am mixing measurements) in, but we didn’t want to kill ourselves. After a lot of back and forth and testing distances on Google Maps we settled on Sofia.

We settled on Sofia for two reasons, it wouldn’t be a killer drive, only about 320 km’s (230ish miles), and Ton wanted to revisit a restaurant there. Ton rarely wants to revisit a restaurant when there are so many new restaurants to be discovered, but she very fondly remembered Restaurant Hadjidraganovite in Sofia. So Sofia became the destination for the day.

The drive to Sofia was on roads a little rougher and busier than we would have liked. That is what happens when distance is your goal, things like traffic start to bother you in a way they don’t when your goal is a place. The last two days have driven that home to us as I have been more frustrated than ever with the road conditions, and the antics of the drivers, things I usually take in stride.

We arrived in Sofia around 2:00 after about 5 hours on the road, so on the whole the drive wasn’t terrible. We headed right into town to have a very late lunch/very early dinner. After our lunch/dinner we weren’t in the mood to explore much, a function of todays goal being distance not Sofia. So we jumped on the subway and headed straight back to François to rest.

Today was a long day of driving. We planned on six hours, and it turned into 8. We knew that this trip was going to have a couple of days of long driving because we could not come up with a loop. The excursion into northern Romania was worth it though.

The early part of the trip went very well, and we were making better time than I thought we would. I was optimistic that the day would not be the slog we thought it would be and then we hit Bucharest. Bucharest is now our European city with the worst traffic having surpassed Antwerp. The ring road is a single lane with periodic strangely designed intersections that have no visible control system, no roundabout, no lights, basically a free for all, right of way goes to the biggest, fastest, and most aggressive vehicles. For a short while it is kind of entertaining, but the fun factor fades fast.

On top of that Greta Garmin for the third time on the trip decided to direct us to a road that does not yet exist. Whoever did the programing for Garmin 18 months ago when we bought our European card decided that freeways under construction could be used. Three times she has directed us to freeways that were under construction when she was programmed, and from the looks of things will still be under construction for several more years. As a result of the bad traffic, and the bad direction from Greta we had to put her in timeout, and break out Google maps on the phone. My guess is that Greta cost us an extra 90 minutes of very stressful driving in Bucharest. The result is that it took us about 2 1/2 hours to navigate 30 miles around Bucharest.

We did eventually escape Bucharest and ended the day at one of our favorite campsites of the trip, overlooking a beautiful gorge in a national park. Our neighbors are an Australian couple who also bought their van from Eurocampingcars in France. It is a small world.

Ton and I have been married 41 years but we still mis-communicate with each other. The plan this morning was to head to Bucharest and we were just about done packing up by 9 am. Ton said she was going to call her friend in Thailand before we took off, so I went and sat down and was enjoying my coffee and taking in the incredible view in front of François.

As I was sitting there I was really enjoying myself and decided to propose a day off to Ton, while she was still speaking to Dang in Thailand I stuck my head in and said lets take today off. Ton immediately agreed, and went back to talking to Dang, and I went back to my coffee.

What I meant by a day off was sitting around listening to the birds and enjoying the view while relaxing and having another coffee, then maybe a nap and a short walk. What Ton meant by a day off was a 70 km round trip drive to Ruse, to walk the town, wash François, and do a final Bulgarian food shopping expedition at a Lidl. Anyway we were off for Ruse about 30 minutes later for our day off.

We accomplished everything on Tons list but the walk thru Ruse as I could not find parking in the city center of Ruse. Instead we substituted a wine tasting at a winery on the way back from Ruse. The wine tasting was nice and interestingly it involved only wines taken directly from the vats, or barrels which we enjoyed.

Next time I ask for a day off I am going to have to be a little more specific!

The image above is from the front window of François tonight. Its places like this that make the whole motorhoming/RVing thing worth while. For those who are following you will remember that yesterday we were sitting on the Black Sea. Today we are obviously not on the ocean.

Every one of our trips has the same pattern. The first month we meander along taking it easy, spending several days in one place because we like the vibe or are just feeling lazy, and then at some point something kicks in and we feel pressure to get moving because we have ground to cover. That tipping point happened last night.

The debate last night was whether to head up the coast to the major city of Varna which is the main port for Bulgaria, or head towards Bucharest. Our first exposure to the Black Sea did not wow us, and while we are sure that Varna is a nice city that probably deserved at least a day of visiting, we were not excited about going there. So we decided to push on towards Bucharest.

We were not completely ready to leave Bulgaria. We have been really enjoying ourselves here, so I looked for a place near the Romanian border we could move to. Some research came up with a highly rated campground called Koukery Campground and it said it was next to the Ruseneki Lom National Park, and a UNESCO site called the Rock Hewn Churches of Ivanovo. So that is where we are as I write this.

The drive over was about 200 kilometers and a large part was back tracking over the same ground we covered yesterday to get to the Black Sea. But as Ton said if we had not gone and seen the sea we would have been disappointed. Hopefully, we will return to the Black Sea again in the future.

After an easy three hours we arrived at the parking lot for the Rock-Hewn Churches. Around 1270 monks began occupying the caves in this area and converting them into sanctuaries. Eventually there were three hundred caves occupied and 4o small churches had been carved out of the caves.

There were two sections to the caves, the main cave that most tourists visit and three smaller caves that most tourists do not visit. I chose to take Ton to the three smaller caves first. Traveling to these caves involves walking along a natural trail thru the National Park. Ton was a little nervous as we were the only one on the trail and it was pretty wild. I kept telling her not to worry as the trail was well used so I was sure nothing could happen. Right after reassuring her that all was well we came upon a snake on the trail. It was only a couple of feet in front of us and I could hear it hissing at us which means it was pretty agitated. I stopped short and backed away bumping into Ton. The snake slid off into the brush on the side of the trail. I do not like snakes, but I told Ton it was no big deal as I didn’t think they had poisonous snakes in Europe. Later when I googled snakes in Bulgaria the snake that looked like the one we had almost stepped on was a common European viper, and vipers are poisonous.

When we got to the first of the minor caves it was quite a climb to get up and view it. After we climbed up we were disappointed to see that it had been closed off with a gate. Ton got a picture of the interior of the cave which I think was a living quarter.

We went on to visit the other two caves on the trail, but the climb up to them was even steeper and higher so we passed. At this point we decided to turn around and head back to the Rock Hewn Church.

We headed up to the church site trying to stay ahead of a tour of 40 Romanian tourists. We got there just ahead of the tour group and ended up with about 15 minutes in the church by ourselves, as the tour group negotiated with the Bulgarian ticket takers over what currency to pay for the tour with. The Bulgarians wanted Lev or Euros, and the Romanians wanted to pay with Romanian Lei. I am not sure how the negotiation turned out but it allowed us to enjoy the interior alone.

The interior was beautiful. The space is small, and some of the Frescoes are quite weathered, but the effect is special. Ton and I wandered around the cave in awe of the beauty.

I am not particularly spiritual, but this place impressed me. The dedication to convert a cave on the side of a cliff into a church takes a spirit that most people do not possess. We have seen a lot of religious art on our travels thru Europe and sometimes we become a little jaded. But today I was really awed.

Our time alone with the church came to an end, so Ton and I headed down from the cave back to the valley floor. On the way we stopped to take in some of the views we had rushed by to get ahead of the tour. They were also magnificent.

Yesterday we felt like we were just making a tick mark on our travel itinerary. Today a place that was added to the itinerary on a bit of a whim turned into the kind of day that motivates us to do this kind of traveling.

The cherry on top of a great day was arriving at the campground. Greta Garmin insisted that the best way to the campground was on a dirt track thru some wheat fields. After I double checked her using Google Maps and turned around Greta refused to recognize the paved road Google picked even existed.

The owner of the campground welcomed us with open arms. In addition to running the campground here he also teaches traditional Bulgarian dance in the city near here. He and his students have represented Bulgaria multiple times in international folk dancing competitions. It was great to talk to him and Ton is proud that he is going to add the Thai flag to the 31 other flags on display in the office representing the nationalities of all of the people who have visited here.

We made it to the Black Sea. After a slow departure because we had to say good bye to several new friends we reluctantly moved on from Veliko Tarnovo towards a campground on the Black Sea. The drive over was quiet most of the way. As we were passing thru a large town we saw a Lidl and turned in to stock up on food. We forgot it was Saturday and the parking lot for Lidl was packed and there was no where to park François. We were about to give up on getting food when I noticed a Kaufmans which is another big chain and they had room in their parking lot. An hour and a couple of hundred Lev later we were back on the road.

We learned from Nick and Nicki that the full on tourist season in Bulgaria doesn’t begin until June 1, and there is almost no shoulder season. Today that bit us a bit. The campground we chose is in a small sea side resort with 8 or 10 hotels. As we pulled in we noticed that despite it being a weekend the place was pretty much dead. All of the hotels seemed empty, and when we pulled up to the campground the gate was closed. There was one guy cleaning up the site, but he was not interested in dealing with us, so we needed a plan B.

Park 4 Night listed a campground about 40km’s away that said it was open on May 1st, there hadn’t been any reviews this year to confirm this and we have learned that the open and close dates are not always accurate on the app, but there was one in May of last year so we bet on it. When we arrived we were met by a very nice man and his dog and we became his second customers. The campground is located on a river and is also only about 200 yards from the Black Sea.

After dinner we took a walk along the beach and the river. The beach was nice, but dead. The river does not need people to feel alive so today the river felt more interesting and beautiful.

Our day started with a visit to a local mechanics shop recommended by Nick and Nicki from the campground. Nicki called ahead to say we were on the way. When we arrived we were guided right in. The mechanic took about 10 minutes to install the bulb, and we purchased a spare bulb for the future and we were on our way. Bulgarians don’t smile to strangers and we both laughed when we left as while the guys at the garage were professional and courteous not one of them showed any emotion what so ever. One guy at the end did say “good day”, which we took as a small victory.

We wanted to visit the village of Arbanasi, which has several small churches and monasteries in it. It happened to be close to the mechanic so we were there in a few minutes. From the road it is not an imposing looking place, a slightly nicer version of the village the campground is located near. We found a place for François next to the village recycling and headed off on foot.

We set off on foot to the St. Mary Monastery because I picked it at random. When we arrived a lady was tending the garden near the entrance. We tentatively stuck our heads in to see if they were open and without smiling she said come in. She then carefully rolled down her trousers and led us to the chapel and opened the door. I asked her if photos were allowed inside and she said “no” and took us to a sign in Cyrillic and pointed to it and gave us an explanation in Bulgarian to prove she was not making up this restriction. The interior was typical, but it is too bad that photos were not allowed because two women were working on restoring the murals inside and it was very interesting to watch how they worked.

We set off to find the center of the village and knew we had when we saw three tour busses parked up. A quick walk thru the shops in town sent us off to another monastery. Ton has been admiring Bulgarian embroidery for the whole trip, and one lady had set up a stall at a strategically placed cross roads that we kept passing in our walks thru town. After some one way negotiating we walked away with a very pretty blouse.

Our last stop in the village was St. Nikolay the Miracle Worker Church. It looked to be the biggest church in town. The churches in Arbanasi are some of the oldest in the area because after the Ottomans captured Veliko Tarnovo a lot of the Christians fled to the hills around it. The rule was basically as long as the churches were small and modest they would be tolerated by the Ottomans.

The grounds of the church were pretty. Unfortunately the church was locked up. At one point a lady stepped out of one of the buildings and shouted at us in Bulgarian. When I replied in English she shouted back OK turned on her heel and went back into the building and never reemerged. After poking around the grounds for a few minutes we headed back to François.

It was a short drive back to the campground. We spent the rest of the afternoon hanging out and talking to Nick and Nicki about life in Bulgaria. We have been following a British couple Dave and Amanda who are traveling around Bulgaria in an Airstream. They invited us to join them for drinks later in the day so we ended the day with a nice chat with them and an Australian gentlemen who is traveling with his daughter in laws father. The talk was fun and everyone enjoyed exchanging stories about being strangers in strange lands.

We have been cheating a bit in our planning for Bulgaria. One of Ton’s best friends from Thailand is coming to Bulgaria with a tour in June and she sent Ton her itinerary and we have been using it to plan our trip. Dangs group had several locations in Veliko Tarnovo on their itinerary, and our friends the Howes told us we must come to this city. We want to thank both of them as it was a great day today.

One of the highlights for me today was at the beginning when I successfully negotiated a 12 hour rate with the parking lot attendant. He didn’t speak much English, and I don’t speak any Bulgarian but when we arrived at the lot he showed me a sign that said each hour was 3 Lev for motorhomes and he gave me a laminated number and manually recorded our license plate number in a ledger with our time of arrival. He then let us in. He seemed like a bit of a character and his pantomime was pretty good. I asked Ton how long she thought we would be in town and she said 4 or 5 hours which gave me an idea. On the sign that said each hour was 3 Lev it also said 12 hours cost 12 Lev, so my thought was if we paid for 12 hours and stayed 4 we broke even and if we really enjoyed the town and stayed 5 or more we would be ahead if we paid for 12. I went back to the attendant with my laminated number and asked him using google translate how much would it cost if we stayed 5 hours and he said 15 Lev. I then pointed at the sign that said 12 hours cost 12 Lev and asked to pay for 12, after a minute he got my point, smiled and took my laminated number from me, made some entries in his ledger and produced a receipt. I gave him 12 Lev, he then hit us with a rapid burst of Bulgarian basically telling me to make sure we keep the receipt safe in case he was not on duty when we came back. With a big smile he sent us on our way.

Veliko Tarnovo was the capital of Bulgaria during the second Bulgarian empire from 1185 to 1393. The ruins of the palace and the fortifications of the city dominate a hill above the city. The walls of the fortifications are largely intact and quite impressive. Since I was determined to spend at least 4 hours in town we covered almost the entire length of the walls.

After our extended tour of the walls we visited the Cathedral inside the fortifications. It is a new building built in 1981 to celebrate the 1300th year since the founding of the first Bulgarian state. It does not look like it is used as a church, but it does have some really interesting artwork that has some Christian scenes in it, but mostly seem to celebrate Bulgarian nationalism. The art is very interesting and reminds me of War posters from the Soviet Union during WWII.

The building was well constructed and followed the style of Orthodox Churches but did not seem to have an altar. Instead of Icons of saints and Jesus normally found in Orthodox churches, there were these very stylized scenes from what I assume are Bulgarian history. It was a very different church than any we have seen since we entered the Balkans, more of a museum.

Having now used up 2 of our hours we headed into the town itself. Our first stop was Samovodska charshya where many of the craftsmen have set up shops. After a little wandering we found it, and it was a charming little stretch of road. We enjoyed looking at the silversmith shop, and a metalworking shop that was producing containers mainly to hold coffee and tea. The workmanship was meticulous. There were also some typical tourist shops. We had just walked into one to look for a couple of small glasses to drink Rakia, when we suddenly were surrounded by about 30 5th graders on a school outing. The store instantaneously turned into chaos and the store owner was perturbed until she realized they all were buying a small souvenir of their trip to Veliko Tarnovo, she suddenly lost interest in us and headed to the cash register.

By now we had walked quite a bit and were hungry. Ton had picked out a restaurant that she said served traditional food. When we got there it was a very modern restaurant, that was serving contemporary takes on traditional Bulgarian food we were also the only customers which is not a good sign. But we were famished so decided to stay. The food turned out to be excellent, and by the time we finished eating another 5 groups had turned up.

Leaving the restaurant we stumbled on the last landmark of the city we wanted to see. Gurko street is named after a Russian General who liberated Veliko Tarnovo from the Ottomans in 1878. He is an important fellow in modern Bulgarian history, but what is cool about the street is that it was the main street in the 1800’s but over time the commercial district moved up the hill, but the buildings that made up the old commercial district in the 1800’s survived largely untouched until today. There were a lot of well preserved old buildings to look at as we slowly walked back to François in our 4th hour of touring the town.

We arrived at the parking lot and met my new friend who was still on duty. He met me with another blast of Bulgarian and a smile, so I think we won our 3 Lev bet (3 Lev is about $1.55).

Last night was the coldest night of the trip. In addition to a hard rain the temperature dropped into the low 40’s for the night. We both got dressed pretty quickly once we got out from under the blankets and while it was chilly the rain had stopped.

We had about 130km’s to transit thru the Balkan Mountains to our next campground Camping Veliko Tarnovo. This campground had been recommended to us by our friends Rick and Kathy Howe as they had stayed here during their trips thru Bulgaria, and had made good friends with the owners who were just starting up the campground when they visited.

After a pretty but uneventful drive over the Balkan Mountains we arrived at the campground around 12:30 and settled in. We spent some time talking to Niki the owner about tips on things to do and I asked for a place I could find a new headlight bulb for François as he has blown one of the ones we just replaced in Montenegro in the fall. Niki and her husband Nick are a nice British couple who moved here in 2009 with the intention of building a campground as they saw an opportunity when they toured thru Bulgaria in 2007. They have built a first class campground. Business has taken a hit since Covid, but hopefully it will rebound this year. Nick is now the head of the Bulgarian campground organization, and they are starting to do some national marketing to make sure people are familiar with what is available for campers in Bulgaria.

Niki mentioned there was a village down the road about 1 kilometer so Ton and I walked in to see what we could see. The countryside around here is beautiful, rolling hills with mountains and very green fields. In fact the whole country has that verdant green that comes with spring.

While the village had some nice houses on the edge, the center felt a little neglected. Many of the buildings were unoccupied and run down. This is a pattern in rural Europe where between a declining population, rapid urbanization and in countries like Bulgaria emigration to more affluent countries in the EU a lot of the villages are emptying out. In a town that once looked like it had a sizable population we only saw two small markets and two coffee houses/bars.

Today has been an interesting day. We woke up to rain, and it has continued to rain all day. We decided to head into the Balkan Mountains to check out an area called the Rose Valley. One of Bulgarias major agricultural products is rose oil which is used in cosmetics and perfumes and this area is the center of production for the roses.

When I punched the campground into Greta Garmin it was only about 120 kilometers so today was going to be an easy drive. Since we had time and the weather was pretty dreary we decided to stock up the refrigerator before leaving Plovdiv. We joined rush hour traffic into town to go to a grocery we had seen the last couple of days from the bus and were there in a few minutes.

Having stocked up our pantry we set out for the Rose Valley. The drive was uneventful but slow as we were on 2 lane roads the whole way. The quality was pretty good, but there was a fair amount of traffic so progress was slow but steady. It rained all of the way and as we climbed up into the Balkan Mountains the temperature started to drop into the low 50’s. We arrived at the campground around noon and were startled by what we found.

We pulled into a nearly new very posh looking campground, but there was no sign of life at all. There was one trailer on site but it looked like it was in storage. Ton and I wondered if it was open, when we saw a head pop out of one of the buildings. It was open but we are the only customers. All of the buildings are nearly new and there are spots for 100 campers. It is a little lonely, but the showers are clean and the free internet is lightning fast so we are enjoying our solitude.

Our other interesting experience was at the Damascena Ethnographic Center. Next to the campground was this very impressive looking building. As we walked up there was a parking lot that would hold a couple of hundred cars and places for 8 to 10 tour busses to park. The parking lot was completely empty so once again we wondered if it was open, it was and we were the only customers.

The region we are in was the center of ancient Thrace so the complex we were in was advertised as both a rose oil factory and a museum about Thracian culture. The building was striking and it had a large grounds with water features and statues. It looked like something you would find in Las Vegas.

The complex was extremely luxurious. It had an outdoor coffee shop that could easily seat 100 people. There were 4 very cold looking workers huddled under blankets and no customers.

The interior was marble and glass and quite large. There was some artwork on the wall depicting scenes from ancient Thrace, and a few photographs of relics from archaeological sites around the area. As a museum it was not very impressive, but the building was fantastic.

The floors were highly polished marble, all of the railings were hand made iron. The furniture was hand made wood of really high quality. We found a restaurant that looked like it could seat a couple of hundred people in high luxury. There were a few workers about but not much being done as we wandered around, they almost seemed startled that there were customers in the building.

There was also an amphitheater on site that looked like it could seat 500. All of this looked like it had been built in the last 5 years. The only thing missing was roses. We bumped into the guy who sold us the ticket and he explained that the roses used for oil production only bloom from mid-May to mid-June so we were a week too early. We could see the fields but there were no sign of roses.

He then showed us a small vial of frozen rose oil. He explained that pure rose oil will freeze and form crystals and is stored that way. He then warmed up the vial in his hands for a couple of minutes and it turned to liquid. He put a couple of drops on our hands and it smelled wonderful. The vial of about 1 ounce costs €25. To produce one kilo (2.2lbs) of oil he said takes 3.5 tons of Rose buds that have to be picked by hand. So we now understand why it costs so much.

We did make some purchases in their gift shop as they had some very nice Rose oil based products. We also bought a bottle of Rakia made from rose oil that we tried with our dinner. Ton loved it and regretted we did not buy more.

Plovdiv definitely needed another day, so we headed in late morning. Today is the final day of a long weekend, most of the stores were open, but the roads were pretty quiet heading into the center. We got off the bus near the town center and heading for the fountain in the main square. The pedestrian mall was still full of people out enjoying the long weekend and good weather.

Without a clear plan except to explore some more and maybe go to a museum we set out to see where the day took us. We came across an archaeological site that was the forum from the Roman era. We joined a large group of Romanian students exploring the area, and after the Romanians left we had it to ourselves. It was uncovered during some construction in the 1990’s like a lot of the Roman ruins in town.

From the forum we spotted a beautiful park a few hundred yards away so we headed over to see what was there. The park was quite large and held quite a lot of artwork. The trees were mature and we enjoyed the shade. Ton was really fascinated with a temporary exhibit by a local photographer. She had shot a series of photos featuring local women dressed to the nines and posed in front of local landmarks, the catch was that they were all very pregnant. Ton thought the women looked beautiful and she lingered for quite a while looking at the photos.

Ton had picked out the Bishops Bascilica of Philippopolis (Philippopolis was the Roman name for Plovdiv) as our museum for the day. In the 1990’s again, the city was doing work on one of the main avenues in the city when they unearthed this site which had been built around 350 AD. It was the main church in town.

In the Roman empire the mosaic makers of Plovdiv were renowned for their craftsmanship and artistic ability so they took great pride in working on the floor of the Basilica. As the work took place over a century, you can see the development of mosaic art over several generations.

When the site was discovered some preliminary work was done to survey the site and archaeologists were very excited about the find. In this period Bulgaria was just emerging from the communist period and the government did not have the money to pay for full scale work on the site so it was covered with a temporary cover and sat mostly untouched for about 8 years. The temporary cover collapsed and the floors that had been preserved for over a thousand years were in danger of being severely damaged.

The US Agency for International Development stepped up with a grant to begin to work on a proper cover and restoration of the site. The grant eventually became the American Society of Bulgaria that continued to fund the restoration, and the eventual building of the museum we toured today.

After a long and enjoyable tour of the large Basilica, and a short tour of a smaller Basilica that came with the ticket, we were ready for some refreshment. We turned up at a local beer hall that features Bulgarian microbrews as well as beers from all of Europe. We each had a beer but they did not have any food except peanuts.

We remembered a place we had seen at the top of the hill in the old town that seemed promising so we headed back up the hill to check it out. It still seemed promising when we got there. We lucked into a table by the railing with a great view of the city. The place was full of locals (for us a local is a Bulgarian, they may all have been from Sofia for all we know.) Unfortunately, the food was mediocre.

We headed back to the campground and settled into François for the night just as a thunderstorm rolled in. Plovdiv has been a real revelation for us, we both agree that it is one of the prettiest and most interesting cities we have visited in Europe.

I’ve always felt that I was a seasoned traveller who had a pretty broad knowledge of many countries history and geography. I had studied Bulgaria a bit during college and in the military, but not enough. I had never heard of Plovdiv until we started reading that it is a must see during any visit to Bulgaria. It turns out it is the second largest city in Bulgaria, it is believed to be the longest continuously inhabited city in Europe with evidence of habitation going back 8000 years. The fact that I had never heard of it until last month humbled me.

Our day started with an act of kindness from a bus driver. We were about 100 yards from the bus stop when I saw the bus approaching from behind us, so we started running to try to catch it, but didn’t have much hope as at our age we are not exactly sprinters. As he came opposite us he stopped and opened the doors and let us get on, and then drove the 80 yards to the proper bus stop.

We stumbled onto a free tour of Plovdiv and decided it would be a good way to get oriented to the city so we joined up. Plovdiv has undergone a bit of a renaissance in the last 10 years as neighborhoods that had deteriorated under communist rule have been revitalized thru good urban planning.

The biggest contributor was converting a major road and a section of old shops that had fallen into disrepair to a pedestrian only zone. This pedestrian zone is the longest in Europe and now is thriving with shops, coffee houses, and restaurants. It was especially busy today as it is a long weekend and the weather is perfect. All of the restaurants were packed, and people were enjoying strolling up and down the pedestrian zone.

With 8000 years of continuous inhabitation Plovdiv has its fair share of ancient sites to look at. In the new town a Roman stadium was located during construction in the 1980’s. Part of it is on display and it is well preserved, the rest of it is still there but it runs exactly under the main road of the town and it turns out many of the 16th and 17th century buildings are built directly on top of the viewing stands, because of that it has not been fully uncovered as the buildings themselves are also rich cultural heritage.

Our next stop was the old town which is on one of the seven hills that make up Plovdiv. The buildings are mostly from the 18th and 19th century so they are not nearly as old the Roman ruins, but the name was given before most of the ruins were discovered and at that time they were the oldest buildings in town.

The old town was where the wealthy residents of the city lived and the homes are very large. They are built in a style called Bulgarian National Revival. They have been restored and we enjoyed seeing a different style of architecture than we have seen in other European countries. The differences are small, but make for a totally different feel.

After the tour was over we headed into town to try to find lunch. The first restaurant on our list told us they could not accommodate us until tomorrow. We noticed all of the restaurants were absolutely packed and began to wonder if we would get in anywhere. Our second choice restaurant had one table left, and while it was not great we took it. Right after we got our beer and appetizer the sun umbrella next to our table got hit with a gust of wind and tumbled into our table. Ton caught a glancing blow as it landed. Somehow our beers did not get knocked over, but the vinegar jar did and some of it got onto Tons favorite hat. The staff reacted weirdly though. After finding out we were ok, they began repairing the damage and cleaning up the mess. They did move us to another table, but other than that they never acknowledged the incident again, no apologies or anything.

Having survived lunch we took another turn thru town looking at sites and mostly people watching. When we got back to the old town there were several couples getting their wedding photos done. The light must be better in the afternoon.

We headed back to the campground in the afternoon having discovered a beautiful culturally rich city neither of us had heard of before last month. To make up for it we are going to go into town again tomorrow to check it out again.

We decided to move on to Plovdiv this morning. We debated whether to go back into Sofia for one more day, but we were afraid that it would be crazy with the military parade and all of the other St. George Day festivities, so it was off to Plovdiv.

We got an early start, and even though the freeway was busier than any we had seen in Europe except Germany we arrived at our campground before noon. We are staying at the Plovdiv Glamping Alliance which is absolutely the most high tech campground we have ever stayed at in either North America or Europe. George at the campground in Sofia warned us that we needed to book in advance because you need a QR code to get access to the site. So last night we picked our spot and got our QR code.

The first step went ok as our QR code got us thru the two sets of gates, we found our spot and began our well rehearsed set up procedure for François. After I located the electric hook up behind a shrub and crawled on my back to get at it I yelled for Ton to verify we had electricity. She said no so I crawled back into the shrub and confirmed everything was ok, but still no power. This happens sometimes and our standard procedure is to shift to another spot and see if the power works there. In this case we were committed to this spot, and even though the place was about 80% empty I wasn’t sure we could just move. So I decided to set off to find a human to talk to.

As I was walking towards the 4 story hotel that the Glamping is attached to I saw a German camper and asked him about the electricity, or if there was a human around. He said I could check the hotel but he hadn’t seen anyone all day. My QR code got me into the hotel, but in fact there was no one there. It was kind of weird wandering thru a brand new hotel by myself, but they really take this contactless stuff seriously here. After some research I discovered I had to activate the electric on a website and as soon as I did the power came on.

They also had a washer/dryer combination machine and we decided we’d do a quick load of clothes before heading into town. After some more on line gymnastics our QR code was updated to allow us access to the washer/dryer. We loaded our clothes and started the cycle and the timer said it would be 5 hours and 48 minutes to completion. At first we thought it was a mistake, but we noticed the other washer that was running showed over three hours to completion so our thoughts of going to town were dashed and we ended up spending the day in François and chatting with our German and Korean neighbors. I think you can take this high tech stuff too far, and they may have accomplished that here.

I had low expectations for Sofia. I think my views of the former Soviet Bloc countries are sometimes skewed by my experience serving in the US military during the cold war. I expected a cold, ugly downtown, and Sofia was not that. Ton on the other hand had done research on Sofia and she expected a pretty city center with lots of gardens and flowers. Her expectation was correct and mine was wrong.

Last night was the chilliest night of the trip, so neither one of us was in a big hurry to get out from under the covers in the morning. Eventually we got moving and after some coffee we headed downtown. We took the subway from near our campground and the fare was the equivalent of 80 US cents each.

As the capitol Sofia has its fair share of monumental buildings, and we spent time trying to figure out what they were. We identified the building that the parliament meets in, and the Ministry of Defense. But there were several other important looking buildings that we could not figure out, including the one the two soldiers in the cool uniforms with big feathers were guarding.

After we got all of the big buildings out of the way we headed to the main Cathedral. Along the way we passed thru a series of nice parks that were full of Tulips in full bloom. Ton really enjoyed the gardens and I kept losing her as she would see something and stop for a photo. I finally had to walk behind her so I could keep her in sight.

Tomorrow is St. Georges day which is a national holiday. As we were walking there was suddenly a low pass by about a dozen different aircraft from the Bulgarian Air Force who must have been rehearsing for tomorrows parade. Later in the day they repeated the low pass and flew over us in the campground at about 500 feet.

Alexander Nevsky Cathedral occupied the center of a large square. It is one of the largest Orthodox Cathedrals we have seen. The interior is interesting because a lot of the pictures of the saints are rendered in a more modern, less rigid form than most Orthodox art.

After the Cathedral we headed to the main shopping street with the intent to people watch and find some food. Ton had a traditional tavern in mind she had found on line last night. After walking down the long pedestrian street with the normal mix of high end stores and coffee shops we found our restaurant.

We ordered a meal for two which consisted of a large skewer of kebab, some pork cutlets, chicken and sausage plus coleslaw, potatoes, and to Tons delight grilled peppers. Ton pronounced the meal the best she has had on this trip, as the coleslaw and chicken reminded her of Thai dishes, and the peppers were very tasty, but a little mild.

We enjoyed Sofia it had a nice mix of impressive buildings, nice parks, and a vibrant street scene. After Greece it felt cleaner and there is certainly less graffiti. For Ton it was exactly what she expected, and for me it was not at all what I expected.

Once again we woke up and realized we were nearly halfway thru our trip and had not reached the country we had picked as the country we were going to visit on this trip. We have gotten very comfortable with Greece, and Nikos had recommended several other places we should visit, but we decided we needed to get to Bulgaria as that was the country we had intended to visit and time was running out.

So we woke up a little early, checked out of the hotel and headed out to the motorhome dealer we had left François at. There was a little drama when we learned from the dealer last night that the warranty against leaks we thought lasted 10 years had expired and they could not do the test. After a quick email with a representative from Knaus we learned that the 10 year warranty started in 2017 and François is a 2016 with a 5 year warranty that had expired last year.

We headed out towards the Bulgarian border for a very quick and relaxing drive on the Greek toll ways. The border was uneventful, except while I was dealing with the Greek passport control guy, there was a knock on Tons door. The guy was not in uniform but announced he was Police and we needed to open the door and let him inspect the interior. I looked at the passport guy and asked him police? When he looked up quizzically the guy not in uniform had been replaced with a guy in uniform so he said yes let them inspect, but I could tell by his face this was unusual.

After I let them in the policeman in uniform told me to open all of the doors and cupboards, but the guy not in uniform said something to him in Greek and asked me to show him the bathroom. While he was looking in the bathroom he asked me where we bought it. He then asked where the kitchen was so I pointed at the stove top and refrigerator. He then asked me how much we paid for it and did we like it. I told him how much and yes we loved it. He then asked if we had enjoyed Greece and I told him Greece was awesome and we would be back soon. He said great and thanked us.

I think the guy might be in the market for a camper van and saw us in line and decided to get a tour of the inside of ours. This explains the confused look from the passport guy, and the other policeman being confused that he did not want to see all of the nooks and crannies of François. The good news was while I was dealing with our “police inspection” the Greek passport guy had handed our passports to the Bulgarian passport guy who he shared an office with and we were welcome to enter Bulgaria.

After weeks of beach front living we are parked in an Aire next to the second busiest road in Sofia and across from a very busy self serve car wash, by the way self serve car washes do not exist in Greece for some reason, so we will be giving François a good bath in the next couple of days. The owner of the Aire lived in Massachusetts for 6 years and said we were his first American customers. He gave us some recommendations for places to visit in Bulgaria and Sofia and we talked about life in the US and Bulgaria for a while.

We started out on a short walk, but it was cold and Ton decided I could finish the walk without her. I went down the road to find a grocery and take the bad pictures for todays blog. Tomorrow we are heading downtown to check out Sofia.