Our bus to Veliko Tărnovo departed Plovdiv at 8:30, so this meant an early start for us, as we had to walk to the bus station, but wanted to ensure we had plenty of time in case of any delays. Lucky for us that we did give ourselves a bit more time as the night person on reception at our hotel spoke little English, so when we went to check out, he did not have a lot of knowledge about what to charge us or who we even were. Personally I think we could have just walked out and he would not have even questioned us.
Of course being good citizens, we paid out bill, although he may have undercharged us slightly, however, who are we to know whether the price had actually gone down, as based on the sign in reception, we paid the right price, it was just a little less than I had anticipated (around $55.00). I figure it was karma coming back to us for giving some money to Georgi, the man who showed us around the church in the old town! Let's hope so anyway!
So we made it to the bus stop with 15 mins to spare, the bus was there and already being loaded with luggage, it was a small mini bus, which was quite warm and I can't say really made for the most pleasant journey, I felt a little car sick along the way! Maybe it was the red wine I drank last night!
The roads are in very bad shape, lots of potholes and very windy and bumpy. It was a 3 and a half hours journey and once we arrived we were more than happy to get off the bus. Once at the bus station, we booked our tickets for tomorrow's journey to Ruse, a town on the Bulgarian & Romanian boarder. We plan to catch the bus there and then the train into Bucharest.
Anyway back to today's adventures. To get into Veliko Tărnovo, we had to catch a local bus as it was a little too far for us to walk. So we waited for a bus, a few went past that were not the right number and then one turned up that was the number we had been told, but when we asked if was going to the centre, he said no! So we waited for another bus and one finally pulled up, we asked if he was going to the centre and he was, yay! Then as we proceeded to the centre he stopped at every stop regardless of whether there were people waiting, he's stopped, opened the doors and then took off again, it was a very slow trip!
Finally we arrived in downtown Veliko Tărnovo, it took us a while to find our hotel as the streets are quite confusing here, but finally we did. We dropped our bags and headed out to see some sights. It's a cool little place here, built on a edge of a winding river, it's quite hilly but easy to get around. Surprisingly there are a lot more tourists here than I thought there would be.
We leaked up to the fort, but chose not to go in as it was quite hot and loads of tourists, it seemed better to take photos of the outside, which we took many. Then we headed back to the centre where we saw a church and got an even better view of the fortress.
By now it was beer o'clock, so we went to a little local bar for some local beer which was very nice and we had a great view over this interesting city.
We headed back to the room to change, it was pretty hot today and we were feeling sweaty after all our walking.
For dinner we went to a local restaurant, we totally ate too much but it was so good! We had a chicken shaslik, and 2 nice big salads. I also had a nice small carafe of Rose and Pete had a beer. The nicest thing about dinner again was the wonderful view, which was a great way to spend our last night in Bulgaria.
So tomorrow we head off to Romania, the land of Dracula! We are excited and can't wait to arrive in Bucharest.
Bulgaria has been wonderful. Again, another surprising place. We have come across some lovely characters here and definitely would say it's worth a visit, it will be on the hot spot list for sure!
Hope you're all loving you're long weekend, enjoy your Monday off and I will no doubt update you again soon :-)
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