Road Closed

"Road Closed" usually means several kilometres of walking with no traffic. Today I got a little more than I bargained for when I had to make a 6 km detour to cross the river. http://flic.kr/p/q7tqYt

Feb 3: Pazardjik

The snow that had been forecast overnight failed to materialise and the morning dawned bright and clear. Since I knew I only had to cover 18 kms today, I slept in and had an extra cup of coffee with breakfast. I was walking along the road in the warm sunshine by 9:30, and it was one of those days when I just flew along.

I arrived in Pazardjik by midafternoon. The clerk at the hotel speaks fluent English (something I've learned not to take for granted in Bulgaria) and was able to give me some suggestions on what to see in the city. There is an extensive pedestrian area in the heart of the city, and he also mentioned the church I'd walked past on the way in to the city.

The cathedral was built in 1837, more than forty years before Bulgaria was freed from the Ottoman Empire. It's the largest church from that era, and its decorations are emblematic of the Bulgarian Renaissance. I must confess that I'm not a fan of most 19th century iconography, and I found the overall aesthetic effect to be overwhelmingly gaudy. In spite of that, I felt very comfortable there, and spent some time with my prayer rope. On the way out, I noticed people gathered in one of the side chapels. I'd missed the first ten minutes of Vespers, but stayed for the rest. 

I walked around the centre of town for the remainder of the afternoon, then bought some food to carry with me tomorrow. It's a 38 km walk, and unlike the past few days, my GPS app isn't showing much of anything along the route. I grabbed dinner from a small grill and now I'm about to turn in for an early night. Breakfast is included in the price of my room, but it isn't available until 8:00. My plan is to be fully packed and checked out by then and start walking as soon as I'm done breakfast. I should be in Plovdiv right around sunset, although with a level path and not many places to stop along the way, I may make better time than usual.

I'm planning to spend a few days in Plovdiv, at the hostel that the folks in Sofia recommended. My dad's friend had recommended a few things to see and do in the area, and by all accounts the city is worth spending some time in.

Feb 1 - 2: Kostenets to Varvara

It snowed in Kostenets Saturday night, and then the temperature drifted above freezing and the snow changed to rain. By the time I woke up Sunday morning, there was 8 cm of snow on the road, along with some very substantial puddles. And it was still raining, lightly but steadily. I knew that the forecast called for sunny skies by late morning, but I didn't relish the idea of starting the day with wet feet. I crawled back into bed, and spent most of Sunday right there.

During my three week convalescence in Santhià, I had done a lot of reading. A day‎ or two before I finally set off again, I'd started reading Moby Dick. Yesterday I finished that novel, and got two-thirds of the way through A Tale of Two Cities.

Monday morning I'd set my alarm for 6:00. This had been my default throughout Italy, but once I left the Schengen area, I began staying up later and sleeping in more frequently. ‎That's all well and good, but I need to start moving a little more quickly now. One way to do this is by being ready to walk by sunrise, and taking full advantage of the daylight hours. (I wound up hitting snooze repeatedly, and finally got underway by 9:00. Great theory...)

I followed Highway 8 for most of the day, and was pleasantly surprised at the abundance of dry seating I found along the way. There were numerous bus shelters along the route, rusted out and apparently disused, but the benches underneath were clean and dry. There were also a number of towns located along the way, so I was able to get a few coffees today. (When ordering a coffee in Italy and in the Balkans, it always comes with a glass of water, but this practice is not observed in Bulgaria.)

Although I started walking in the foothills, the general trend of the road was downhill. Eventually I reached the central plain again, which slopes down gradually to the shore of the Black Sea. My destination for the day was Varvara, which entailed cutting south away from the highway and climbing up again, but I still wound up over 200 m closer to sea level at the end of the day. My GPS app tells me I walked 34 kms today, although the staff tonight told me it is 40 kms between Kostenets and Varvara. (See my comment in the last post about people's ability to accurately estimate distances.)

Varvara is a town in the foothills, and its main claim to fame is the hot mineral springs. The "motel" I'm staying at tonight has the rooms arranged around a very large central square. The swimming pool has been drained for the season, but the pool with the steaming hot mineral water has been covered with a large tent. By the time I had unpacked and settled in, the sun had set and the full moon was only partially obscured by clouds. I soaked in the hot water for a while, and then had to make the cold dash across the yard to my room. (Yes, there were still small patches of snow on the grass.)‎ After a hot shower and good meal, I'm ready to hunker down and spend more time with Charles and Lucie.

Breakfast isn't available until 8:00 in the morning, but tomorrow will be a short walking day, so I don't mind having the opportunity to sleep late. (It's either walk 54 kms to Plovdiv tomorrow, or 18 kms to Pazardzhik and then 36 kms on Wednesday. I *could* do a 54 km day, but I'd really rather not.) My desire to consistently walk 30-35 kms per day is contingent on finding a place to stay each night. Although the weather has been beautiful, it's still too cold overnight for camping. They're calling for snow tonight‎, so I'll snuggle into bed with my (electronic) book and read until I fall asleep. It's been a great day!

St Theophylact of Ohrid

The commentaries of St Theophylact of Ohrid have been very helpful to me over the years. http://flic.kr/p/r1GcmH

Jan 30 - 31: Ihtiman and Kostenets

I was up and packed by dawn (7:30) on Friday. It's not that I was in a hurry ‎to leave the wonderful people I had just met the evening before. I wanted to spend some time with them before I started walking again, and so I got myself pulled together and headed downstairs.  Unlike the evening before, there were no kids in sight. I don't know what time school starts in this part of the world, but I guess it's earlier than I realised. I chatted a bit with one of the mothers and left my Facebook info for the young woman who'd been translating for me the evening before. Somewhat sadly, I took my leave of Novi Han.

As I started walking, I noticed that the tops of the hills to my right were obscured by clouds, with the hint of some heavy weather. "Glad I'm not headed up there," I thought to myself. And then a few minutes later, the road bent south and started to climb. 

Once again, I was reminded what a difference a few hundred metres in altitude can make. I had started walking wearing my basic layers: merino t-shirt, lightweight longsleeved shirt, and my vest. I soon pulled my merino blend hoodie on, and by the time I reached an elevation of 800 m, I'd added my windproof shell. It wasn't all that cold, although there were small patches of snow in the woods where the shade was constant, but the wind was strong and I was walking through the cloud cover. There were very few cars on this stretch, but there was also nowhere for me to sit and take a break. 

Eventually I spotted a large building to my right, with a guardhouse and a set of gates. ‎I figured it was some sort of government installation, but the gates were open so I decided to try my luck and see if I could find a dry place to sit out of the wind. As I walked on to the property and approached the guardhouse, there was a sudden flurry of movement and a very large man burst out and said something to me very firmly in Bulgarian.

"I'm sorry, I don't understand Bulgarian." Then I switched to English, accompanied with some pantomime. "May I sit down inside for a few minutes?" There was a brief consultation through the open door of the guardhouse, and then I was ushered in. Warmth, a desk with a uniformed guard sitting behind it, a split-screen security camera monitor‎, a TV, and a couch with some coats and a very business-like rifle on it. A large map of Bulgaria on one wall completed the scene.

I rattled off my memorised introduction in Bulgarian, and was soon offered an energy drink‎ to quaff while I sat on the couch. The conversation was a little rough at first, but between Tony's broken English and my broken German, we could have kept talking for quite some time. (Tony had been a long-haul trucker for twenty years, and had snippets of every European language between here and Russia.)‎  The facility that they were guarding is the first (and still functional) radio transmitter capable of broadcasting to the entire country. It was built in 1938, and I guess this sort of infrastructure does need protection.  Tony was also able to reassure me that Ihtiman, my destination for the day, had both a hotel and a motel.  When I left, the blowing‎ wind and the enveloping dampness didn't seem nearly as cold as it had just a short while before.

The road began to descend shortly after I left the friendly armed guards behind, and I soon found myself below the cloud cover again. I'd been following the old Highway 8 for the past two days, and up until now it had remained fairly close to the new Autobahn 1. After the next village, all the (very inconsequential) traffic diverted on to the A1, leaving me with a road that was more pothole than pavement. That suited me just fine, especially since the A1 then veered north well out of earshot.

The rest of the day was quiet and peaceful. The only noteworthy event came in the late afternoon when, with Ihtiman in sight and a little more traffic on the road, I was flagged down and asked to help push a van out of the mud. It was only after two more guys, passing by on a horse-drawn cart, added their shoulders to the task that we were able to push it free. I was offered a ride to Ihtiman, which I declined with a nod of my head and a "Ne, blagodarya."

The folks at the first gas station on the edge of town told me the hotel is closed, but that the motel on the A1 was open. The last few kilometres were uphill, but the weather was quite warm by now (well, for Bulgaria in January) and the wind had died down. By the time it picked up again, and the rain started, I was already snug in my room finishing off the Novi Han post.

Because of this, it was rather late when I got to bed, and since breakfast wasn't available until 8:00, I decided to sleep in. I had spent some time during the evening going over possible destinations for Saturday, and searching for available accommodation. (I've noticed that people are generally really bad at estimating distances. At the gas station, they told me the motel was only 3 kms away, when actually it was five. And the motel clerk had suggested Pazardzhik as a possible destination, being only 35 kms. Except it's fifty-five. There are a few exceptions to this: professional drivers (like Tony), bicyclists, and other walkers.) 

I'd settled on Kostenets, even though it was only 16 kms distant. At the hostel in Sofia, I'd flagged this as a possibility. Even though it would be a short walk, I knew there'd be accommodations, and it would leave me within a long day's walk of Pazardzhik. Short day, early night, ba-da-boom-ba-da-bing.

And so here I am in Kostenets. I went shopping and bought supplies for breakfast, and as I was leaving the supermarket I heard the church bells pealing. It took me a few minutes to find my way across the river to the other part of town, but I made it to Vespers for the Publican and Pharisee. It was all in Bulgarian, of course, so I missed out on the great texts for this preparatory service, but Lent is coming!!! :-D

I'm tempted to stay another day and go to Liturgy‎ in the morning and then wait out the rain which has already started, but I am eager to keep walking and build on my  momentum. I passed the 1500 km mark yesterday, but I'm going to have to pick it up if I want to walk through Turkey. By all accounts, that will be long and challenging. I may end up flying from one of the regional airports to Haifa and missing out on Cyprus entirely, but I'll make that decision once I reach Istanbul.