Two On Tour

Into the unknown. But it feels so…civilised!

Wednesday 24 July

I don’t sleep well on our final night in Jon’s flat in Istanbul. Despite the upright fan blowing cool air straight at me, it’s another uncomfortable sweaty night. And I’m just a little nervous about the journey ahead. We’ve planned for all contingencies that we can, but you never know. I drift in and out of sleep with a podcast feed in one ear before getting up at 6am to start getting ready. We leave Jon’s flat at 10am in a taxi. Despite a couple of brief downpours this morning – the first rain since the day we arrived in Bergama – the road to the otogar is free of snarl ups – although as a parting shot to Turkish male imbecility, our driver gets in a verbal snarl up with the driver of a white van whose driving he clearly disapproves of, and threatens to kill him next time. Ho hum. Pot. Kettle. Black. No thought for our safety, of course, as he hurtles after the white van as if he’s running late for a date with death.

Our bus to Bulgaria leaves pretty much on time at midday. The journey to the Bulgarian border a few kilometres beyond Edirne is uneventful, but crossing the border takes nearly three hours and involves a lot of waiting around. We finally pull off into Bulgaria at 6pm. The first thing we see is a big, gaudy casino. Given how long it took to clear the border, I’m not sure how attractive a night out this might be for border-hopping Turks.

We arrive in Plovdiv soon before dusk. The outskirts look rather shabby, but the city steadily improves as we approach the bus station. We walk 25 minutes with the suitcases to the hotel as night falls, past a street-level sex shop, and a billboard on which a young lady is wearing a bikini. We’re definitely back in Europe!

The hotel is a good place to acclimatise for a couple of days before we move into our Airbnb. It’s already quite late, so we just eat at the hotel restaurant. It all feels very civilised. First impressions good.

Thursday 25 July

Our first full day in Bulgaria. After a breakfast buffet at the hotel, I take a morning stroll into town to find our upcoming Airbnb. It appears to be in a very good location near the centre. It’s quite a bit cooler here than it was in Turkey, but this is a probably just the temporary patch of poor weather.

I have some work on today, which suits me fine. We head out for lunch, after which I walk K up to the Airbnb. She likes it here (“more civilised” 😆). We take an evening stroll out to a suburban mall (H&M, Body Shop, Zara etc.) and eat there.

There’s a heavy rock festival – ‘Hills of Rock’ – going on in town. We don’t really have time to go to it as I’m busy with work and going for just one evening would be a big financial hit. Still, downtown Plovdiv is awash with moderately unkempt goth kids, many wearing band tees of heavy rock groups old enough to be their grandparents: Iron Maiden, Scorpions, and Megadeath among them. A British band called Bring Me the Horizon are headlining. When I look them up, I see they’ve notched up hundreds of millions of plays on Spotify despite my never having heard of them. Two number one albums and one number two album in the UK, apparently.

Friday 26 July

After breakfast I spend half an hour on the phone to Geeta, who’s hurt her back. Lunch is a magnificent spread of sushi and sashimi.

Plovdiv’s very lush and green, drivers insist on giving way to pedestrians, and there are Irish bars, Japanese restaurants, and Korean supermarkets. It really is all rather civilised 😊.

Saturday 27 July

I head up to the Old City for an early morning stroll. It’s rather lovely and, at an early hour, very quiet.

After another magnificent lunch of momos, we move into our Airbnb. It’s fit for purpose and comfortable enough, with a enormous TV. We watch a decent enough Bulgarian historical drama film, Damacena: The Transition, which spans the 1970s to the present day focusing on one man’s career in the rose oil industry. That sounds niche, but it’s genuinely educational—especially a section that portrays the forced assimilation of the Turkish minority in the 1980s.

Sunday 28 July

Another quiet day of work. I head out in the morning and again in the late afternoon to explore our new neighbourhood. In the morning, I head north over the underwhelming Maritsa river, turn right, and walk a few blocks before returning over the river at the next bridge, which is a pedestrian bridge lined with small shops, all of which are closed on Sunday morning. In the afternoon, I head south and do an anti-clockwise loop via the supermarket. Near the Roman Forum, a boisterous but seemingly otherwise harmless crowd of maybe 500 football fans are chanting slogans ahead of the local derby between Botev and Lokomotif, which will end as a 2-2 draw.

In the evening we watch another Bulgarian film, ‘Shelter’, in which a 12-year old kid brings home a couple of older punk/goth friends to his family flat. It’s rather enjoyable.

Monday 29 July

More work. In the late afternoon, we head out to explore the old town together in 35 degrees. Just getting a feel for it today. We’ll buy tickets and explore it properly later this week

Tuesday 30 July

Exchanging a few ‘dobro utros’, I take an early stroll up Bunardzhika Hill to the Alyosha Monument. Just below the monument, I stumble across what seems to be a folk dancing meet up: maybe 20 couples shuffling in a circle to some suitably folksy Bulgarian music. It’s a slightly surreal and rather wonderful moment. The sort of thing you travel for.

The views from the foot of the Alyosha monument are quite fabulous. To my surprise, Plovdiv really isn’t very large. I reckon we could walk out of it completely in under an hour.

We’re about to head out for a late afternoon stroll together when we realise the key is stuck in the lock and we can’t get out of the flat. A lady called Olga comes to rescue us. Apparently, she runs the cleaning agency that covers our flat. Now we can get out, but the key is still stuck in the lock and we can only really go out one at a time as we can no longer lock the door to the flat. K goes out first to do some shopping. Later, I head back towards Bunardzhika Hill, this time walking the narrow streets around its base.

Wednesday 31 July / Thursday 1 August / Friday 2 August

A quiet but industrious three days. We’re mostly lying very low. It’s hot outside and, Thursday aside, I have plenty of work to get on with. I’m getting out for an early morning stroll most days. Between 7am and 8am, the temperature is around 20 degrees and just right for exploring the surrounding neighbourboods.

Wednesday night we eat out at the Happy Bar and Grill, a popular local chain. It’s excellent, and given the value for money, we decide to order dessert too. We end up spending longer in the restaurant than planned, and by the time we’re ready to pay, it’s too late to walk up to the Alyosha monument (K hasn’t been up there yet). We’re now aiming for Saturday.

On Thursday, we plan to head out in the evening to watch Botev Plovdiv play Panathinikos in a Europa League qualifier. An otherwise helpful lady at Tourist Information incorrectly tell us that the match has been postponed, but anyway it seems to be sold out when K checks online. Just as well as Plovdiv lose 0-4 and crash out of Europe in the first week of August. Ho hum.

On Friday morning, there’s a nasty metallic smell in the air when I head out for my morning stroll. Apparently, a local rubbish depot has caught fire. Given that there was a similar fire at another rubbish depot on Wednesday night – we saw the smoke north of the river while walking home – it all seems a bit suspicious. But, of course, I have no idea what’s going on in this town.

The main door to the flat remains unfixed. The neighbourhood is clearly fairly safe, and it’s not as if anyone can walk right in from the street. But to be safe, we’re leaving an umbrella on the door handle when we go to bed. In the unlikely event that someone tries the door, we should hear a clatter as the umbrella falls to the floor.

Saturday 3 August

We finally have a new lock on the front door. A cordial 40-something chap with a toolbox turns up at the front door mid-morning. So, that’s one more person we know of who has a key to the street door! He speaks only a few words of English, and I only speak a few words of Bulgarian. But we manage. He’s not here for a conversation, after all.

I finish an AsiaEdit job late afternoon – my first for over two months. I don’t really need this job, but it’s probably wise to keep a hand in. And the feedback via the checked paper is always helpful.

We head out for an early Saturday dinner in the Kapana district, but it’s too early to have much atmosphere. The early meal is intentional: we want to walk up to the Alyosha statue to catch the golden hour. But as we start walking up to Alyosha, there’s a flash of lightning and spots of rain begin to fall. We turn back. As the spots turn into a deluge, there’s a wonderful smell of summer rain as we beat a hasty retreat to the flat. Just before we reach the flat, there’s an almighty clap of thunder as lightning strikes far too close for comfort. Alyosha can wait for another day.

After drying out, we sit down to watch John Singleton’s ‘Boyz n the Hood’ – currently available on Netflix, and which neither of us ever saw back in the day. It’s excellent – equal parts ‘Stand By Me’ and ‘Do the Right Thing’.

Sunday 4 August

I take an early morning stroll up to the clock tower on Sahat Tepe. There’s no one around. I see a few early risers as I head back to the flat in a loop through Tsar Simeon’s Garden, but it’s still very peaceful on this quiet Sunday morning.

Mid-afternoon, we head out to the City Art Gallery, which is excellent. I’d learned a little about Zlatyu Boyadzhiev and I’m rather stirred by his portraits and landscapes of Plovdiv and the surrounding countryside.

In front of our flat, there’s modest monument expressing, in English, the gratitude of the Bulgarian Jewish community to the Bulgarians for not deporting them on 10 March 1943. Curious, I spend much of the day reading up on Bulgarian history, which leads me to the 2012 Macedonian film ‘The Third Half’, which I’m chuffed to find on YouTube with English subtitles. I’ve read that Bulgaria strongly objected to the film because of the – by all objective accounts, honest – way it portrayed the Bulgarian military occupation during the Second World War of what today is North Macedonia Yes, Bulgaria saved its 48,000 Jews from the death camps, but its occupying force in Macedonia did send 12,000 more to their deaths. Spend much of the day wondering why so many find it so difficult to take a good hard look at their countries in the mirror and recognise not only the good, but also the bad and the ugly. I happen to believe the UK is, on the whole, pretty good at this. Anything else leads to hubris and a sense of victimhood.

Monday 5 August

I take a second stroll up to the Alyosha monument for my morning walk. The folk dancers are there again. It’s all rather wonderful.

After lunch, we walk five minutes to the regional history museum. Most of the museum is given over to the events of 1878 to 1885 and inevitably focuses on the invention of modern Bulgaria. But there’s a final section that focuses on the development of Plovdiv after Bulgarian independence from the Ottoman Empire. One old photo shows the square outside the Djumaya mosque in the 1950s before the Roman stadium turned up underneath.

Tuesday 6 August

Finally, we visit the Roman Stadium (underneath the road in the above photo), and also take in two historic homes from the National Revival period in the Old Town. One of these, the Hindiyan House, is especially lovely; the other less so, but it seems to function more as an art gallery than as a historic home, so we enjoy the paintings.

In the evening: Barbie: The Movie. Finally! Yes, it’s a riot – at least until the last 20 minutes, where it seems to lose its way just a little.

Wednesday 7 August

My early morning stroll takes me up to the north-side bus station, from where we’ll leave for Veliko Tarnovo a couple of weeks from now. Just doing my homework, knowing the lay of the land…

Afternoon finds us finally entering the ancient Roman theatre, which is all set up for a performance of some sort this evening, with sound and light equipment and cables running everywhere. From there to a permanent exhibition of Zlatyu Boyadzhiev paintings in another C19 house in the Old Town. It’s rather wonderful: impressionist-style paintings of Plovdiv and life in the surrounding countryside in the middle decades of the C20.

Shortly before sunset, we finally head up the Alyosha monument together. The light is perfect and there are just enough others up there enjoying the views and the evening breeze to create a bit of atmosphere without it feeling crowded in any way. We wander back down to eat at the sprawling traditional Bulgarian restaurant at the foot of the hill. We arrive too late to nab one of the outside tables and are forced inside instead, where they appear to be playing a tasteful compilation of the best British music of 1993 including Radiohead’s ‘Creep’, Depeche Mode’s ‘In Your Room’. These once ubiquitous songs can sound stale in a more familiar setting, but in an otherwise traditional local restaurant in deepest Bulgaria, they suddenly sound fresh and vibrant again.

Thursday 9 August / Friday 10 August

Thursday is very quiet: I’m working, and the furthest we stray is to the supermarket to stock up. After dinner, we watch a BBC documentary about the 1978 assassination of poor Georgi Markov – the famous poison-tipped umbrella murder at a bus stop on Waterloo Bridge. Despite Bulgaria’s transition to a functioning democracy, the murder has never been solved.

On Friday afternoon, we head to see the stunning Roman mosaics at the Bishops’ Basilica. We’ve been in endlessly diverting Plovdiv for more than two weeks, and yet these mosaics are the most jaw-dropping thing we’ve seen to date. Plovdiv: the town that just keeps giving. The museum itself is beautifully designed and very new. And to think all of this was lost to history until they were building an underpass in the 1980s.

The mosaic museum is very close to the Korean/Japanese grocery store that K noticed on our first night in Plovdiv when we dragged our suitcases past it. We finally pop in and stock up on dumplings, wasabi, and plum wine.

Saturday 10 August

Saturday is quiet. Having visited the spectacular Basicilla on Friday, we head to the Small Basilica, which is far less spectacular but still worth visiting. Revisiting the Happy Bar and Grill for dinner we begin to discuss serious plans to visit Poland next year.

Sunday 11 August

I fracture my humerus bone at the left elbow. While taking a morning stroll up to the Alyosha monument, it occurs to me that I should have taken the bike out today as our Airbnb host came round on Saturday to pump some air into the tires, and it’s a quiet Sunday morning on the roads. I come back, collect the the bike and head towards Youth Hill.

I don’t really know how it happens. I think I swerve to avoid a pothole. Whatever, the front wheel freezes, the bike disappears from under me, and I find myself hitting the road with my left elbow, and right knee, palm and cheek.

My left arm hurts, but I don’t think too much of it as I pick myself up, pick my undamaged glasses up from the tarmac, and U-turn to cycle back to the flat.

Back inside, I clean up my superficial cuts and grazes, but soon realise that my left arm is what I need to be concerned about. I apply an ice pack but by late morning morning the pain nearly causes me to pass out.

After lunch, we cross the street to the nearest hospital, which turns out to be a maternity hospital. The helpful receptionist calls a taxi and sends us to the main public hospital. Within a few minutes, my elbow is being x-rayed. A few minutes later, the on-duty doctor calls me in and points to a deep fracture at my elbow. This I wasn’t expecting, but I’m also not surprised.

I’m duly packed off to have a splint fitted, which I’m told I’ll be wearing for 25 long days. Ugh. Still, the care I’ve received is completely free of charge.

Back at the flat, sleeping in the bed is out of the question. Attempting to lie on my back with my splintered arm over my chest is impossible because of the pain. Instead, I end up sleeping upright in an armchair. How many nights will I have to do this?

Monday 12 August

We already have a day trip planned to the Rose Valley, which doubles up as the Valley of the Thracian Kings. All splintered up, I’m ready to go. Forty-something vaguely Thom Yorke clone Kamen is our engaging guide, and we’re also joined by lovely Holly and Tom from Vancouver, and Graham and Maria from Bari – him via Reigate. We all get along like a house on fire, which helps compensate for the itinerary, which is mildly diverting but for the most part hardly essential despite a two-hour drive: a museum dedicated to the rose oil industry at Kazanluk, and some ancient Thracian tombs nearby with some of their remaining contents. Best of all is a lovely onion-domed church in the foothills of the Balkan Mountains at Shipka, a short drive north.

Sleep-deprived last night, I doze off in the minibus on the way back to Plovdiv. When we say goodbye, I’m genuinely sorry to be leaving everyone’s company. It’s been a riot. Back on our own, we hit a clothing shop to buy a couple of shirts, which just might be easier than wearing t-shirts right now.

Tuesday 13 August
Wednesday 14 August
Thursday 15 August
The cuts and grazes are healing well, so I assume my elbow is too. I’m getting used to the splint and the pain is less frequent. After three nights sleeping fitfully in an armchair – leaving me with a sore neck – on Wednesday I manage to lie flat on the sofa, and get a good night’s sleep. There’s never a good time to break a bone, but all things considered, it’s happened at a time when we’ve already explored Plovdiv, it’s too scorching hot to be outside much, and I have plenty of work to get on with.

On Wednesday, we reach the milestone of one year of travel (bar brief visits to Hong Kong to tie up loose ends). Years used to go by in a blur: fast and unfocused. Political milestones, certain Covid moments, and holidays aside, I struggle to recall in what year anything happened in the ten years up to 2023. But looking back on the past year, I know exactly where I was and what I was doing every month.

In the evening, we head back to the restaurant below the Alyosha monument.

Friday 16 August – Thursday 22 August

We’ve been lying very low this past week, so daily entries have dried up. It’s now August 22 and we’ll be moving on to Veliko Tarnovo a couple of days from now. My broken arm has become more of an inconvenience than a physical pain. I’m continuing to sleep on the sofa rather than risk K rolling onto my arm while we’re both sleeping.

The weather has been a bit gentler the past two days. It rained on and off earlier this week and the end of summer finally feels within reach. A week ago, we were stepping out into a furnace. It’s still hot, but the unpleasantness has gone and the door to autumn feels almost ajar.

We’ve got into a routine of eating once a week at the Happy Bar and Grill, and once a week at the restaurant at the foot of the hill below the Alyosha monument. Excellent food, lovely staff, and very affordable. I’ll miss both places when we move on.

I had multiple work projects going on until early this week. Finally, I have some time to do some life admin. Otherwise, besides occasional eating out, our only ventures outside have been the daily supermarket visit and the occasional museum or gallery. In the evenings this week, we’ve been watching Skins. Only 15 years on from its making, but never mind. God bless Netflix!

But it’s all good. The week and a half since I broke my arm have been the closest we’ve yet come to proper slow travel, whatever that is.

Friday 23 August

Our final day in Plovdiv. I feel genuinely sad to move on, and I think K does too. It’s been such a pleasant surprise to find such a handsome, friendly, and endlessly diverting city down here at the back door of Europe.

I’m still sleeping on the sofa because of my arm. Before I get up, I listen to Portishead’s ‘Dummy’ – properly, on headphones – to mark its 30th birthday.

Packing is slow work with one hand. When we’ve packed as much as we can, we head out to the Happy Bar and Grill one last time. We walk back across the pedestrian bridge over the Maritsa river just as the sun is setting. It’s not the world’s most graceful river, but it almost looks charming tonight.