Kat and I had about 100 miles between Sofia and Plovdiv to cover. The weather forecast was pleasant enough and the views didn’t hurt either. We were bicycling over the foothills of the Rhodopi mountain range to our South.
Even better, we met another pair of cycle tourists. They’re essentially doing our route in reverse and we stopped to chat and trade tips for one another.
We stopped for dinner in Samokov. The town is a hub for skiers in the winter but during the off-season was pretty deserted. We had the restaurant to ourselves and enjoyed some grape leaves and grilled veggies. Since entering Bulgaria, the food has become decidedly more Turkish which is A-okay with us. We continued on to Plovdiv where the terrain would begin to flatten.
Plovdiv is Bulgaria’s second largest city and (claimed to be) the oldest existing city in Europe. It won “Cultural Capital of 2019” for the continent and we think it’s well-deserved. We took a walking tour and the town is full of relics from the many empires that the city belonged to at some point or another. The architecture was a cool mix of Roman, Byzantine, Ottoman, Soviet, and Modern.
In two days time we’ll be crossing into Turkey (with a high temp of 104F 😵 ). We’ll be leaving earlier in the mornings and taking shorter days until things cool off.
Kat & Kyle Cycle 