Garmin Activity: https://connect.garmin.com/modern/activity/2247879052
115km, 5h36, 566hm
It was raining badly this morning, so badly that we did not set out. It was already passed nine and no signs of better weather. We decided to at least use this time to go to a bike shop. Plovdiv was a big city and there were two bikeshops, moreover, we both needed new brake pads after 2700 of hills.
Niki Kolev was an interesting bike mechanic. He not only fixed our bikes but he also brought us lovely stories. \We spent several hours in the shop chatting while he did a full check up on both bikes. Meanwhile outside it was still raining...
Around noon the harsh rain stopped and made way for drizzling rain. Roger and I decided to go hit the road anyway. If we can do 50 km, we will have done that at least. Better than nothing....
Roger was ready for a half day of cycling
It was hard to tell what would happen from the skies but we would notice soon enough
From Plovdiv, we headed further east towards the Turkish border. These were the last 180 km in Europe
Most of the section was flat and we had no head winds. Thus progress was pretty good. We quickly had those 50 km and felt we could do more...
As Turkey came closer, so did Greece. We were approaching extremely well on the Bulgarian map
A special moment of the trip: We saw the name Istanbul indicated on the signs. It was really happening, we were cycling across the European Union
25 days on the road and we are in East Bulgaria, amazing
Judging our progress and studying the map, we decided we would be able to reach the town of Harmanli. That would be around 100 km. Doing 100 km on this half day ride would be completely insane.
There was such a mysterious atmosphere surrounding this 25th day of the trip
Svilengrad is the town that borders with both Turkey and Greece. We were so darn close!
This photo is from late in the evening around 7 pm. The sun was setting. The second part of the day had been very nice
We entered the town and found a nice hotel. There were also some Turkish guests
A view of Harmanli, our last stopover on EU soil. We ended the day with 115 km, which is fantastic for half a day of riding.
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