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Published: August 6th 2009
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Veliko Tarnovo day 13-14 (June 19-20)
A fairly long and hot train ride to our next destination. The border crossing again was fairly painless, just a bit time consuming and always hotter when the train is not moving. I was glad when our leader sourced some cold water for us at a rather long train stop. I had a brief conversation with an older man who got into the cabin I was stretched out in. He asked where I was from. I asked if he was from here. He indicated that this was a big crossroads, and that the announcements that we could hear were about our train but I couldn’t work out what they meant. Eventually we moved on and arrived at Veliko Tarnovo which had previously been the capital of Bulgaria some time ago.
The town built into the banks above a river and looked like a mountain version of the Italian area of the Amalfi coast with houses hanging over the edge. Everywhere were cobbled streets and lots and lots of stairs to get to the next streets.
Our rooms where in one of those houses that looked like they were hanging over the edge
but we saw that there was a bank only about ten feet below our balcony so not so far to fall. The rooms themselves were not that clean, and our shower was just a hose attached to the sink with nothing to separate it from the toilet so everything would get wet when showering. As it turned out the water was not hot so while the shower was refreshing it was a quick one.
We had dinner in a nearby restaurant, which was great food. The famous Bulgarian salads that we had heard about certainly lived up to their reputation, and the meat (pork of course) was equally good. As we came our of the restaurant we heard the sound of the frogs in the river below. They were almost deafening, but I supposed good to know the ecology here was still in tact.
The next day was a mixture of shopping and keeping out of the heat. On our way back to our rooms we were blocked by an adventurous truck that had become wedged between two buildings. There were police keeping people out as I think they were worried that the truck may have damaged the
structure of one of the buildings, so we had to retrace out steps and try to enter our street from the other direction. It was a long work back especially in the heat.
In the late afternoon we went out again and up to the fortress, which had a large wall (almost great wall looking) with a church at the top, it was still so hot so we headed back into town for some cold drinks looking over the valley. The truck was still stuck in laneway so we returned via the long way to meet for dinner. Everyone got to finish their meals before mine came, I’d ordered salmon fillet that I think they had to wait until it thawed, but we had all become used to the practice of eating when a meal came and not waiting until everyone was served. This was common in many of the countries I had visited and just one of the little differences that you notice about how things are done.
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