A couple of oldies, but goodies: Plovdiv and Veliko Tărnovo

I last left you in Stara Zagora, about to head to Plovdiv, which I did. I then left Plovdiv to head to Veliko Tărnovo and am now in Sofia. My apologies for taking so long for the Plovdiv post but whilst there I become food for some biting insect which then led to the hostel being disinfected from head to foot and I didn't really feel like blogging. This was subsequently followed by a stomach bug at Veliko Tărnovo and very unpleasant night on Wednesday which delayed me further. As such, you're going to get the two cities in one as otherwise you'll likely get neither!

Up to Stara Zagora I hadn't taken any trains in Bulgaria. It was for no other reason than I didn't have any journeys for which trains made more sense than buses, but I did feel like I needed to experience a Bulgarian train and the journey from Stara Zagora to Plovdiv gave me the perfect opportunity. It was going to take less time than the bus (such a rarity!) and was at a reasonable time to both leave Stara Zagora and get me to the hostel for check in at Plovdiv. So train it I did! Again it was one of the trains which have six-seat 'rooms' with the corridor running along the side of the carriage. 

And again, it was heated to about 35 degrees! Seriously, they don't cope well with cold out here...

Anyway, I arrived safely in Plovdov and headed up to the hostel. It had been recommended to me and despite everything, was a really lovely place to stay. Stan checked me in and explained all the rules (of which there did seem to be a lot, even for me who likes rules, but I guess that is what kept it so nice!) and then I headed off to explore. Ths recce trip took a slightly different turn to the ones that I'd done previously. Yes, I checked out places such as the Odeon...

And the Stadium...

But I'd only gone and turned up in Plovdiv during the Young Wine Degustation when there is a tasting of the first wines of the season! I thought it would be rude not to partake and at 8LEVA (£3.75ish) for a glass and 8 tokens (1 per taste) there was no stopping me!

Fortunately, this glass seems to be fairly robust and so I've brought it with me this time rather than leave it in the hostel. It's survived the journey so far so I'm hopeful that I'll be able to get it home! I managed 6 tastings before it became apparent that I hadn't eaten since breakfast and Bulgarian pavements being what they are I decided not to risk my leg getting hurt again and head for dinner. I did make a couple of friends on the way though!

The following day dawned bright and sunny and so I took the opportunity to mooch around Plovidiv and then do the free walking tour. My morning mooch took in some different places in the Old Town to those on the walking tour and included the Yellow School...

Various churches...

The really old ruins that haven't been reconstructed...

And the house of Dimitar Georgiadi one of Plovdiv's important Bulgarian Revival buildings and a good example of the Plovdiv symmetrical buildings. You can tell Bulgarian Revival by the decorations above the windows. They're painted on and therefore not in relief like many decorative windows that you see.

During the walking tour we found out some interesting bits and bobs about various aspects of the city.

This guy's name is Miljo and he used to be a character in Plovdiv. He was honoured with this statue when he died. His legs are rubbed shiny as legend has it that if you rub his legs then you'll be lucky in love. Whilst I rarely believe this type of thing, I wasn't taking any chances and kept my hands firmly in my pockets!!

We didn't find out why his nose and shoulder were similarly shiny!

From here we went into the area of Plovdiv called Kapana, or 'The Trap.' I heard two stories as to why it has this name. The first is that there are lots of bars there so you go for one drink but then it turns into an all-nighter as you get trapped. The second is that because the streets run in all different directions it's like a trap. Personally I like the first story best!

Then we went up into the Old Town and saw the ancient theatre.

The theatre and the stadium (from earlier in the post) were discovered around the same time. It was realised that the stadium ran the entire length of the Main Street and as such a really large number of buildings would need to be pulled down to excavate it. The theatre was discovered by a man digging in his back garden. He unearthed a pillar, told the authorities and after some investigation they realised what was hidden beneath his and the other 19 houses around that area. As that was a much smaller number of buildings that would need to be demolished, they went for full excavation of that site and just uncovered the end of the stadium. Really can't imagine the guy was popular with his neighbours after that! The theatre dates from around 1AD. It was thought it was built in 2AD but recent excavation unearthed a plaque that dated it a century earlier.

After that, and because we finished in the Old Town where the wine festival was taking place, and because I had a couple of tokens left, I went and tried two more wines before heading into the Main Street for dinner. On my way back to the hostel I found a group of people performing traditional Bulgarian dancing in one of the squares. It seems to just be people enjoying themselves and anyone could join in, rather than professional dancers...

The following day, the bites that I'd had were really starting to itch and I was feeling pretty miserable so I took myself off to the shopping mall for while, had lunch and then headed back to the hostel to read books and watch movies! It didn't help that the rain was absolutely lashing down that day as part of a front that has been playing havoc with the weather in Bulgaria. Fortunately I'd seen all I wanted to so I didn't miss out on anything.

The next day I headed from Plovdiv to Veliko Tărnovo. I'd planned to go here mainly for Tsaravets fortress but it was also a place that had a lot of recommendations from people I'd met along the way as being a generally nice place to visit. The bus journey took around 3.5 hrs and we went back through Stara Zagora and along part of the route I'd taken to Kazanlak a few days before. The weather front that had been passing through the country had left a considerable amount of snow in the mountains in the days since I'd been through the first time and it was really beautiful as a result.

I arrived at Veliko Tărnovo around 4.30pm and this town wins the award for the bus station being the furthest away it can be from the town centre, around 5km. It was starting to get dark when I arrived and so I did the very rare thing for me and got a cab from the bus station to the hostel as I really couldn't spare the effort to work out the town's public transport system at that point! It feels really extravagant taking a taxi on this type of trip but sometimes you just gotta do it. As it is, taxis are cheap and it only cost me just less than £3 but was worth every penny! 

In Veliko Tărnovo I was staying in Hostel Mostel, a recommendation from Hayley who I'd met in Cluj Napoca earlier in my trip. Great recommendation! This is one of the only hostels I've ever come across which is half board. The first night there were only 4 of us staying in the hostel and so over dinner I got to know Harrison who was visiting from London, and Ashley and Connor who are from the USA but living in Bulgaria for just over a year for part of Ashley's PhD research. 

The next morning, the weather was glorious and so knowing it was unlikely to be that way the following day, fortunately I decided to do as much as I could on day one. I started off by wlaking along Gurko Street in the Old Town...

 To get to the lookout point from which the views of Veliko Tărnovo were beautiful.

and saw the Bulgarian Asen Dynasty monument and the Art Gallery.

From there I took a walk further into the Old Town and saw the Market Square

Yet another church

And then I headed to Tsaravets Fortress, which as I said earlier, was really the main reason for me going to that part of Bulgaria.

There are a few downsides to travelling off season, including shorter opening hours and some places being closed completely, but one of the absolute best bits is that you get to have some places virtually to yourself. And it really doesn't get much better than being one of only a handful of people in a fortress the size of Tsaravets! It is one of the best places I've visited in Bulgaria, possibly in the entire trip. The start of the construction of the fortress dates to the 12th century and in some places the walls are nearly 4m thick.

It was really the most impressive place and being virtually alone, I got to explore it exactly how I wanted to with no interruptions and I could sit undisturbed and look out at the truly impressive views.

At the top of the fortress is the Patriarchal Cathedral. Never has artwork come as more of a surprise as it did inside this building!

I spent a good 20 minutes in the church alone just looking at this and working out the underlying messages in the paintings.

From there I then went a walk around the rest of the complex, the creepiest part being the Execution Rock

It's the area just behind the white square (a safety sign!) from which traitors were pushed to their death in the Yantra River. I took the picture with my shadow in it so I looked like the grim reaper! Below is another part of the ruins in the complex.

After the fortress I was really starting to feel quite peculiar and had assumed it was because I'd not eaten anything since breakfast and had been quite active clambering around the fortress. I had a salad for lunch which seemed to help for a while but after struggling to eat any dinner and having a lie down in the hope that I would be able to retain the contents of my stomach, my body's defence mechanisms kicked in around midnight and I spent an unpleasant evening ejecting from my digestive system whatever bug had decided to take up residence. It made me really thankful that I'd seen everything I could the first day and reinforced how kind people are. The following day, Randy in the hostel found some tablets he thought might help, Trish and Sun-Mai (not completely sure I've spelt their names right, apologies if not!) offered to get me snacks from the shops and were just really nice people to have around and by that evening when I was starting to feel more like myself I met Ted from Taiwan who was a really sweet guy to chat to. He also wins the award for making me feel good about myself after my ordeal as the next morning when we were discussing how it's been 17 years since I worked in America, he couldn't understand how I could have been working there in 2000-2001 when I was so young! Totally made me feel better after a guy in the hostel in Plovdiv after learning my age told me I could be his mother!

And so from Veliko Tărnovo I took my last bus journey and made my way to Sofia. I got the bus from a different station to the one I'd arrived in; it was clean, modern, and would have been a home in the UK.  The bus was the same. It felt a little weird and I kind of missed the slightly dubious minibuses I've been taking! And so I'm now in Sofia, the last location of my European Adventure, enjoying all the city has to offer; delights I'll share with you in a few days...!