Day 6 - Plovdiv to Sofia

Day 6 - Plovdiv - Sofia

So this is the end of my first ever Bulgarian adventure. I didn't get much sleep again last - buzzing mind problem really. I think I'm pretty much over the jet lag by now.

Bye bye Toni, Phil and Vesi - Merci mnogo

The idea crossed my mind that I should go into Plovdiv one more time to get some more Leva as I'd spent more over the last couple of days than I'd thought and that I thought it might be a good opportunity to buy a new shirt to replace the crappy ones I'd brought for one last wear before I throw them away.

It's another strange thing I do. Before I go, I go through all my clothes and find the tattiest, horriblest ones - the ones that, truth be known, should have been chucked out years ago. So, those are the ones to make it into my very small carry on travel bag. The idea is to keep the bag as light as possible so there's no point taking lots of clothes by throwing them away after a couple of wears. As I go, if I see a bargain, I'll buy a replacement, and so the number of clothing items I have stays small. In Brazil, I remember buying a pack of underpants in Belem for next to nothing, having thrown away all the most UN-favourite pants I had!

Anyway, that was the plan I announced to Toni and Phil at breakfast, but Phil had a better idea. Why didn't I just take one of his old shirts? And why not just give me the aussie dollars and he'd give me the equivalent Leva and exchange it for himself later? Too blady easy!

So here I am, in Sofia, trying to while away the hours before I have to go to the airport (eating nice food and drinking nice wine) wearing Phil's shirt!

The journey from Plovdiv to Sofia went very smoothly. Phil had drawn out very detailed instruction for me to get out of the city and onto the motorway, which I carried out to the dot, initially. The lane instructions, particularly, were useful. But I must admit, when I got to a certain point, I saw a sign for Sofia (to the right) whereas Phil had instructed me to go straight on. Sorry, Phil! I went for the signs and, it did get me to the motorway correctly enough.

It was great having my music on full blast as I motored west across central Bulgaria back to the capital through beautiful scenery. I stopped at one service station, hoping to get WiFi access and a coffee but to be honest the woman serving was about as friendly as a grumpy old Russian ex-shot-putter. I downed it and found another - about 2 km further on. This was good old Burger King and it was kitted out with everything and more than we'd expect in Australia, except the name "Hungry Jack's". So after a good hour blogging and Facebooking and generally catching up, I felt so guilty I'd only spent 2 Leva on a coffee I had to buy a Burger. The Bulgarian version of the Whopper with Cheese is, if anything, tastier, and fresher than the one we're used to in Oz.

Anyway, whilst I was there I wanted to get Google maps up to check where to go to the CSKA stadium and then to the Vitosha mountains. I had nominated these as my two tasks to do before dropping the car off. In the middle of the night I'd also thought I might drop my bags off at the airport before doing so, so as to have one les thing to worry about.

Unfortunately, Sofia airport does not do this, though - I discovered - so instead of stopping there my first stop was the CSKA (army) Sofia stadium. Why? you might ask. Because I'm a football fan, of course. Plus this has special interest to fans of Nottingham Forest. Forest, as many of you will no doubt know, won the European Cup TWICE - in 1978-79 in Munich and again in 1979-80 in Madrid. They had gone two years without losing a tie over two legs (they had already lost to Dynamo Berlin in one leg, but won overall). So, as Forest embarked on their 3rd successive season in the top European competition it probably didn't fill their hearts with too much fear when they drew the Bulgarian champions, CSKA Sofia. Over-confidence is never good in sport and Forest paid the price, it seems, as they lost both games to go out of the tournament, probably forever.

Forest players came out of this tunnel

So, I wanted to go to that ground, wearing my Forest (European Champions) shirt as a mark of respect to Sofia and also to show that you can't keep a Forest fan down for long.

After that, it was off to the hills - well mountains - overlooking Sofia from the south. Coincidentally, my Polish friend who translated Elaine Morgan's books, Malgorazata Danicka, had noticed I was in Bulgaria and she had a couple of timely recommendations - to visit a church in the foothills of the mountains... and (I must admit, more appealing to me) to try a few Bulgarian wines.

Not going to wait an hour to see the inside! (Notice the shirt, Phil!?)

I found the church Ok, unfortunately it was chucking it down and a bus load of Japanese tourists had just got there so, as they only allow eight at a time in the tiny church, I would have to wait an hour trying to stay dry. Now I do appreciate a bit of Russian Orthodox religious art from time to time but I'm not that keen! So, instead I drove up the mountain to try to find a good view of Sofia before heading back to drop the car off.

I refilled the tank and (ridiculous I know) cleaned the car with one of those jet spray things that simply didn't make any difference. I spent 0.6 Leva for nothing! Instead I got my old yellow "I am a Great Ape" T-shirt out and wiped off all the gubbins. And then I was off.

The cleanest hired car ever handed back?

Google sat nav is great. As long as you are in a Wifi zone when you plot the course, you don't actually need to be in a WiFi zone to be able to complete the journey, ieven if the route changes mid-way.

Anyway, I arrived at the Hotel Balkan in good time to make the hand over and I was relieved that the same guy from Sixt came to meet me and said everything was ok. 

That done, it was time to try to get rid of at least some of my luggage - the big bag - before having one more night in Sofia. The Maria Luisa hotel agreed to look after my big bag for nowt and have ordered me a taxi to take me to the airport later on. The flight to Paris is at 6 am tomorrow so I have a few more hours to kill here before then.

Just had a lovely meal here...

But there is it. France 2016 really does begin for me tomorrow. 

Woo Hoo!!! See you on the flip side!

Aljice

Sofia