Last night Sarah, the dogs and I, wandered into Sapareva Banya to look for somewhere to eat. Sapareva Banya is a spa town and quite a contrast to the rural village where we spent our first night in Bulgaria. Much better maintained and clearly receiving some new investment. There were several spa complexes, including one massive new resort with seven pools.
After several false starts we finally found a restaurant which was open and Sarah had a rustic salad, which was essentially identical to a Greek salad and I had what I thought was meat balls, but which turned out to be a giant burger! €12.50 for this, some french fries, garlic bread, a large bottle of water and half a litre of palatable chardonnay wine! Bulgaria is cheap.
Today we had a drive of just over 100 miles. Virtually none of it was on motorway and so we got a good view of Bulgaria’s countryside and small towns. The scenery was at times stunning. I was not surprised by Bulgaria’s mountains, because I know people who have been skiing here, but they almost have an alpine feel to them, unlike in Greece, with lush mixed forests covering all but the upper slopes.
Even the lowlands are verdant, but I get the impression that much of the agriculture is hindered by lack of investment. Horses and carts and Soviet era tractors are common sights on the roads. We saw numerous storks on the ground feeding in low lying pastures and donkeys and mules still abound, presumably used as beasts of burden.
Soviet era vehicles are still running fine
Our initial assessment of the housing stock has been reinforced. Many, perhaps even a majority, of the houses in rural towns and villages have appalling construction standards and many are, in addition, in a very poor state of repair. I lost count of the number of times one of us said, indicating a house, “what have they done there?”, “what on earth is that” or just “look at that”. Suffice it to say we have never seen the like anywhere in Europe.
The roads are mixed. Some very good, but the bad, and there are plenty of those, rank as the worst we have come across so far in our 5,000 miles. Some major highways have more patches than original road and often had poor old Basil rattling like a Salvation Army collection tin. The roads have makeshift stalls at regular intervals with smallholders selling cherries, strawberries, honey, wine and everything else currently in season. We bought a kilo of cherries for €2 today in a greengrocers, so I presume the roadside price is even less than this! Having been ripped off once at a roadside stall in Greece, we are reluctant to stop unless there is a price displayed.
After a quick stop for lunch, we arrived at our destination for the day, Koprivshtitsa. This is a small town in the middle of nowhere which is famed as the place where the first shots were fired in the Bulgarian uprising of 1876, which although brutally suppressed by the Ottoman Turks, led to a revival in Bulgarian nationalism and eventually Bulgarian independence. The town has, as a result, deliberately maintained and restored as much architecture from that period as they can.
Koprishtitsa
Koprishtitsa
We parked up in a large car park on the edge of the town and spent a couple of pleasant hours wandering the very picturesque and mostly well maintained cobbled streets. The feel of the place is very unique and presumably reflects Bulgarian national architecture if the 19th century. Several houses have been restored internally and are open as museums and the town is full of monumental statues of national heroes. Unlike our visit to the so called pretty village of Melnik, on our first day, this visit was very much worth the effort.
Koprishtitsa
Koprishtitsa
One of the few period houses in Koprishtitsa which has not been maintained!
I had picked out a nearby campsite for the night, but our large, flat car park looked ideal for our purposes. I approached a security guard to ask if we could stay the night. She didn’t speak any English and my Bulgarian now extends only as far as hello and thank you! Never fear Google translate to the rescue. It worked perfectly. She produced a sheet showing the cost to stay long term in the car park and so for an investment of €6 and a receipt to stick in our window, we are set for the night.
Sarah has already hand crafted a curtain to replace the disgraced Mabel’s shredded blind. We had a wander round some small shops in the town earlier and Sarah found some small rubber rings intended to be made into children’s bracelets and has utilised these as curtain rings. It has now worked very well and will last us until we next see Blighty.
Having saved money on a campsite we are going to spend the saving on a meal out, so cheap is food in Bulgaria. If we are wild camping we like to put money into the local economy where possible, in that way it is a win win situation.