Day 3 - Sofia to Plovdiv

Sofia to Plovdiv 

Woke up with a two-star hangover quite early and bravely went down for breakfast. Jeffov and Toniov joined soon. Tony kindly agreed to do the first of my blog interviews about the Euros. (More on than later.)

After brekkie we headed off for a bit of sight seeing. We headed to the Alexander Nevski Cathedral at a very steady pace, stopping to watch a big American film set being set up. They had a large security force set up to prevent people from taking photos. It was incredible. Here's a public place on one of the major avenues of a big city of over a million people and they were trying to stop people taking innocent pictures of something of which they probably had no idea what was was happening.

We popped into a Russian Orthodox shrine before having something to drink before heading up to the very impressive "Nevski" cathedral. 

After that, it was a taxi ride back to the hotel and an interesting chat with the driver who told us he played for the Bulgarian Ice hockey team. Suddenly, it was time to check out and say goodbye to my friends.

It was a ten minute walk to the hotel Balkan, via the Roman site in the city centre, where I had arranged to pick up the car. 

The Sixt Car Hire guy was waiting for me. We got down to business and it soon transpired that I had been a bit naive about my planned trip to Bucharest. I needed a permit apparently, and needed to pay a fee on top. So I quickly decided to knock the idea on the head. I contacted my AirBnB host to cancel, shamefully, just before the 24 hr deadline. 

At the end of the day I got into the car and managed to drive it away but then it dawned on me that I should have hired a GPS system as it took about an hour to find my way out of Sofia's maze of un-signposted busy narrow streets.

Anyway, eventually, I found myself driving down the main motorway to Plovdiv though beautiful hilly scenery.

I had to stop a couple of times to get WiFi access so I could get in touch with my next host, Phil Kirk, to tell him I'm going to be even later than I thought. After a failed attempt to find his flat in Plovdiv I had to resync with Google maps to home in, during a massive storm that was brewing up.

So, finally, I arrive at Phils' and, of course, it was a lovely, hospitable experience. Phil's wife, Toni is so welcoming and intelligent and so is her mum, Vesi. After a bit of de-briefing about what had happened to us since out last meeting at least 15 years ago at the Blues concert in Kirkby, we went off to explore Plovdiv.

And what a lovely place it is. We arrived, under umbrellas, to witness an arts and music festival which included dance and music and a hundred stalls selling cultural artefacts in KAPANA, the area of Plovdiv where it was held.

The first stop was the amazing Roman sports arena literally on top of the town center, beautifully and tastefully excavated ironically placed right next to, and below, a beautiful mosque.

Phil and me waiting for a jazz band to play

  g

We went to one of Phil's friends' sandwich diner (think of a more up market and tasty version of Subway) as it started to get dark.

One of the books on offer to read in the diner was this one...

... which I think means something like "Adventures of an English man in Bulgaria and other stories". The author... Phil Kirk! I think it's impressive when anyone writes a book but to do so (and a second) in a language you have only started experiencing eight years ago and have no parental affinity to is amazing.

After a nice ice cream/sorbet combo, it was back to theirs for a good night's sleep.

Aljice

St Vlas Sunday, 5th June