Sofia and so far

Not only did we find our bike again but we made some new chums at the bike shop too. Having failed to find the Harley shop in Sofia two years ago we relied on a taxi this time. Perhaps it was because he had been on a tourist training course and didn't want to make us feel inadequate, but he struggled to find it too. But find it we did and we are now en route!

It was strange to think that in less than 24 hours we had left work, travelled to Heathrow, flown to Bulgaria with its time zone shift, had a good nights sleep, had breakfast and then coffee at the bike shop, packed the bike and were now heading East to one of the two 2019 European Cities of Culture.

We had visited Sofia in 2015 and had done most of the tourist things - we enjoyed the trams where the driver had to get out to change the points but even that was not enough persuasion to keep us this time.

 

The road east is pretty straight and uneventful. We left the snow covered hills of Sofia and the road seemed to be downhill all the way. The only events on the way were the hooting of cars and the thumbs up signs - clearly in appreciation of our Russian Red Fox tail trailing in the wind....

So Plovdiv it is for us. After all who has ever heard of Matera? We also stayed in Plovdiv in 2015. That time we stayed in the old town which is on the top of a hill and had the biggest and most uneven cobble stones known to mankind. Apparently Plovdiv was yet another one of those towns/cities of seven hills but, somewhat uniquely they claim to have knocked down number seven to make the cobbles for the old town. New clutch plates were required after our visit in 2015. So knowing we were coming to Plovdiv again we didn't want to subject ourselves to the same stress. And certainly not at the beginning of a trip. So we booked somewhere outside of the old town. But we got it wrong. We are in the next street from where we were in 2015; Boris's Palace but this Boris doesn't have the same hair style.                                                                                            

So we visited Plovdiv and its cute timber houses and ever so cute cobbled streets - on foot.

We visited the remains of a magnificent Roman stadium - just one end, the main shopping street has been built over the rest, you can see some of the stone terraces in the basement of H & M. There was also the remains if an amphitheatre too - still in use but the Roman stone seating looked more secure than the Bulgarian timber seating that had been added in the holes where the archaeology had 'suffered'. We also walked to the viewing point which the Bulgarians claim to be the site of the oldest city in the world. Plus city claims to be 8,000 years old. From the top of the hill we could see the Dubrovnik styled red roof tiles, a socialist realism statue on a hill across the way, a telecoms tower on another one, some pretty grim tower blocks in need of repairs to the concrete, the football stadium lights, minarets and orthodox crosses and power station chimneys. It is Bulgaria and its been a bit hazy today, nothing to do with those power stations and there is a thunder storm brewing that will hopefully clear the haze for the down to Constantinople.