Garmin Activity: https://connect.garmin.com/modern/activity/2247878981
124km, 5h26, 777hm
The cute little mountain hostel survived a stormy night. We woke up, packed our things and got ready to leave. We had a chat with the owner and he gave us directions of where to go eat in the small town of Zlatica, that was right around the corner.
He explained us that from Zlatica no matter where you would go, would go uphill. We had one long climb ahead us of and then it would all go downhill to Plovdiv
Our day started at 722 meters elevation and we went up first, it was a long climb that went all the way to 1100 meters, but the gradient was very forgiving and the weather was downright fabulous
District of Anton, I know a guy with that name in Prague
The view at 1000 meters was stunning. We noticed on this trip that every stormy night is followed by fabulous weather the next day. Another achievement I was thinking about was the fact that after Plovdiv today, it was less than 200 km to Turkey and the end of the European Union. We are going places...
Welcome to the region of Karlovo. This spot at 1100 meters was the summit of that long climb. What followed was a very long stretched out descent at 1-2% over pristine asphalt and no traffic. I am not lying if I said that I did not touch my brakes at all during this descent.
In the city of Karlovo we had already dropped to 470 meters, which means a 700 meter descent. That was lovely. But Plovdiv was located even lower..
Lunch came first though. We were hungry and we found this little road side restaurant. We got a salad and some typical Bulgarian dish. If you cannot be open to local food, then you should not be on this trip. I ate everything I could possibly find. Being picky and arrogant was not why I set out on this trip.
Sofia is the capital on the west of the country, Burgas is the harbor city on the Black Sea in the east. We were kinda in the middle of everything. As you can see, Bulgaria is not a small country.
Slowly we were approaching Plovdiv, which is the Taichung of Bulgaria, the nr 2 town.
The mountains from which we had just descended. Magnificent scenery!
Every country is a discovery. I could not plan this trip in such detail and many things had to be figured out on the road. These sudden discoveries made the trip a genuine success. The central mountain range of Bulgaria will have that kind of taste for me forever. I will be back for more...
As we approached Plovdiv it got later and some clouds took shape. If not today, we would have rain tomorrow.
This photo turned out to be very dark
We entered Plovdiv but we wasted nearly 2 hours finding our hostel. It was fighting frustration at times because the other hotels we asked charged us ridiculously high prices of 70 euro and more. They saw two cyclists in need and they would be willing to pay right... In the end we found it and we got ready for a dinner and the time of the day to relax
Images form the historic town of Plovdiv
Plovdiv is also a UNESCO world heritage site, just like Cesky Krumlov in Czechia
Beautiful castle
During dinner we met a group of Taiwanese tourists who were traveling the Balkan countries. They were all teachers. For Roger this was very nice and we chatted with them quite a bit. Another nice moment we could not have anticipated! Taiwanese in Plovdiv Bulgaria, yeah !
With 124km bagged in today and well in the south east of Bulgaria, we reached Plovdic. From this town the Turkish border was only 185km away. That feeling filled me with excitement. To be continued...
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