And I thought we would never make it here on bicycles...

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Total Distance Cycled: 854km over 9 cycling days

The forecast for Tuesday and the rest of the week was suppose to be nice, but overnight and into the morning there was no sign of that. I'm not sure if we had even seen the sun since a week ago Sunday. We took our time until there was some confirmation that the weather was starting to break. It finally did, and we were off by 9:30! We found a side road for the first 25km that avoided the main highway that had driven Shauna bit nuts the other day. The road was VERY quiet, but the it reflected that, as in places it wasn't in great shape. We did get a chance to go through some small villages, though, and it was certainly a better experience than competing with all of the traffic on the main road. The highlight of the day was the 15km ride we did through the gorge on Struma river. The gorge's high walls and windy road made for a beautiful backdrop. Even the motorists seemed to take note, as no one seemed to be travelling all that fast. We made it to Blagoevgrad by about 15:00, so we decided to ride to the next city, which was Dupnitsa. We knew at 500 to 600m tomorrow morning would be much colder with the clear skies forecasted. By riding to Dupnitsa, we could get a later start and still make it to Sofia. With a tailwind, we were there by 17:00.

Dupnitsa certainly wasn't a tourist town. It only had one hotel, and I could only find one restaurant downtown! This is in a city of 43,000. There were, though, at least three dozen cafes downtown…The restaurant I did find appeared to be a local Italian chain restaurant. We ended up having a big Roma Pizza with two beers and two waters for $8CAD -- can't beat that value. On the walk home, I noticed how dark the city was. In general, the street lights all seemed to work, but they were of VERY low wattage. The experience reminded me of Lome, Togo or the cities in Cuba I travelled through.

The next morning it was 0c, so we took our time getting going. We walked around in the morning and took some pictures. Once again, this city had an old Byzantine church. Nearly every city we have stopped in on this trip had some Byzantine ruins. My Byzantine history is much better after this trip.

There is no question that Bulgaria is a country in transition. While some things are as modern as back home, you just need to turn your head to see something that hasn't changed in decades. Now that Bulgaria is part of the EU, I'm sure that will change a bit faster now.

By 10:30, we were on the road, but it still was cold. It would remain that way until we got outside of Sofia, as we climbed to a 850m pass. On one of the blogs I was reading, a cyclist talked about this four-lane highway south of Sofia. We had been waiting for it since Blagoevgrad, but still no sign… We battled with the traffic and cold for the first half of the trip!. For our lunch break, we pulled in to a small restaurant along the highway. Lunch was good, but what was most interesting was watching Bulgarian TV. One show showed male contestants unbuckling bras on women models! It was a speed competition, but in the middle of the day! They obviously have a different perception on sex education here. Another example was at a gas station stop outside of Sofia. One of the books for sale was a sex book with many explicit diagrams on how to have sex.

At the halfway point, we came across the "Ghost Highway". It was beautiful with shoulders wider than I had ever seen before, but it only lasted 15km! The EU had worked on this highway with the Bulgarians, but what was the point for something only 15km long? It was so disconnected with the rest of the highway I didn't see the point of what they were trying to accomplish.

Most of the last 15km into Sofia was downhill, as it sits in a bowl (surrounded by mountains) comparable to Mexico City or Milan. The thing that I found most interesting was that the cobblestone streets started on the outskirts of town -- poor cars! Fortunately, Shauna found a bike path running along the main road, and we followed that all the way to the center. I'm not sure I can remember an easier ride into a major city.

We have four nights here, so I decided to upgrade and made sure they we were comfortable ones. We ended up finding a hotel close to the shopping and historical sites. With less that 1.5m people, Sofia isn't a big city, so it is very walkable. We grabbed a nice dinner at an Italian restaurant that had Latin music playing in the background. You know your in the big city with this kind of multiculturalism.

On our walk home from dinner, we noticed a liquor store in the basement of a building with the only access through a window at street level. On top of that that, there were some small round tables next to it for people to stand and have their drink right there! I'm sure this new concept isn't coming to Edmonton any time soon.

On the aside, I find it interesting how all of the bathrooms here are unisex. This will make the women happy as they have more options. Also, all the toilets also have a half-flush and full-flush button. I guess that is better for the environment.

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Photos

Bill
Bulgaria has the smallest cafe bills I have seen in the world.