Bulgarian bikepackinkk

An introduction revealing the author's ignorance

I, ladies and gentlemen, knew as much about Bulgaria as an average Pole should know. That we sometimes play football with them and usually win. Thanks to the rich and excellent Polish documentary cinematography, I also know the scheme of action of Bulgarian agents trying to recover an important microfilm. Thanks to them, I also know basic phrases useful during bikepacking, such as:
"my apartment consists of a bathroom"
"there is no sausage in the pastry shop"
"my car went to school"
And above all, since I went to high school, I know what a Bulgarian prostitute is and how she differs from it.

This is roughly enough knowledge to go on a trip across Bulgaria: from Sofia to Burgas. Especially since tickets (including a bike) to Bulgaria can be snapped up for less than 1000 PLN, the trip takes less than across Warsaw during rush hour, and the flights themselves can be caught at beautiful hours – after or before work. Taking advantage of the May Day holiday, I set off on a 5-day bikepacking trip alone. Without a big plan, but with a few route options. Roughly because there is definitely less about cycling in Bulgaria (apart from the potentially boring trail along the beautiful blue Danube) on the internet than about cycling in, for example, Rwanda. And that's a shame, because it is supposedly one of the most biodiverse (is there such a word?) countries in Europe.

So I spray myself with Brutal cologne, dress up as a child and set off on my journey. Before the journey, of course, I read it several times: https://www.nebule.pl/rosyjski-alfabet-genialna-metoda/, because without knowing bukw it will be hard to eat something in a restaurant (does not apply to salami sandwich). Bulgaria is the only country in the EU that uses Cyrillic.

My 5-day route ultimately totals just over 1000km, with about 11km of vertical gain, and bears little resemblance to the originally planned Sofia-to-Burgas route. Green is the mountains, red is the route, and orange is where I spent a bit more time, meaning I spent the nights. I don't know if I would change anything, as I don't know what I missed.

Abbreviation

Bulgaria (the one I saw) looks like the worst Silesian settlement moved to the Bieszczady Mountains, which are located next to the Tatras. It seems great, but only for a moment. It is a country from which you return with a smile to your wonderful homeland.

Village.

First, the average village consists mainly of abandoned houses with crumbling roof tiles. If a house has all its walls and windows, I consider it luxurious. There are definitely more houses than people. There are about 83 times more people of retirement age (or even post-retirement) than younger people. It looks like a set for a zombie movie. To complete the effect, everything is covered in obituaries. I don't know, maybe they forgot to get the COVID vaccine here. Or maybe after joining the EU, someone shouted: "The last one turns off the lights!" and everyone works in the UK.

If humanity decides to return, there are also child-friendly aspects. Smaller towns are equipped with small playgrounds – something for everyone. They usually consist of a slide, sandbox, swing and… a howitzer, tank or fighter.

City.

Cities are better… or worse. I don’t know. They definitely have one thing in common: in those thousand kilometers I haven’t seen a single new, beautiful building. Not a single one that I thought “cool, I could live there for a while.” It looks like developers haven’t discovered this place yet.

Although no, there is another similarity. There are an alarming number of expensive cars that do not fit the scenery at all. So you pass a crumbling block, and under it some matte Brabus, or some other G-class for a little money. Apart from that, of course: mostly horses and BMWs.

The city itself usually consists of a river and blocks of flats: like Girona, only add the filter "Eastern Europe - stereotype". The first 3 days it amuses and makes me laugh, in the following days a little less. In addition, kebabs, pizza by the slice, Lidl, Kaufland and Billa, and in them exactly the same as here. Prices? Similar to ours.

Asphalt? Rather worse than better. Few new ones, many old ones. It's hard to create asphalt loops that completely avoid the main roads, because there are simply few of them. That's probably why I see 3 road cyclists in a week and probably 20 times as many people on MTBs (although usually on the roof rack of a car). Drivers? For a Spaniard or an Englishman it might be a shock, for a Pole - not so much. If there's room, they'll pass with a margin, if there's no room - tough. If on a road that can accommodate two cars and half a cyclist, a cyclist meets two cars in the same place, but with the opposite turn (and they'll be the only cars he'll meet within 30 minutes), they'll still overtake each other exactly at his height.

Neither city nor countryside.

I always thought that Bulgaria was Golden Sands, a holiday destination for people who have already left the Egyptian all-inclusive but have not yet entered the Turkish one. The rest was supposed to be fields like in Serbia or Hungary. It is not – Bulgaria is mainly mountains, and very beautiful ones at that. From the lower ones like the Bieszczady Mountains, to snow-capped peaks over 2 km high. The high ones are so cool that they are not placed in one long range like in our country, but scattered in different directions of the horizon. So there are mountain serpentines, very long climbs, areas for walking, hills and generally everything you need for happiness. On most smaller roads, traffic is practically negligible, and the quality of the asphalt is completely random. Because admit it, when you think of Bulgaria, you do not think of a road like this:

^{_{Rila (Bulgarian: Рила, Рила планина) is a mountain range, or (depending on the assessment) a mountain range, in southwestern Bulgaria. It is the highest mountain range on the Balkan Peninsula, the highest peak Musala is 2,925 m above sea level. Rila is also the sixth highest mountain range in Europe (assuming that each of them is represented only by the highest peak) after the Caucasus, the Alps, Sierra Nevada, the Pyrenees and the Etna massif. It is also the highest mountain range lying between the Alps and the Caucasus. Rila has 90 peaks above 2,000 m above sea level, including 2 above 2,900 m, 1 above 2,800 m, 15 above 2,700 m, 17 above 2,600 m and 20 above 2,500 m. - Wikipedia}}

Here's an interesting fact: in Rila National Park you can find a climb (doable on a road bike, with a certain amount of persistence) with the following parameters:

16.3km with an average of 11.1%

I myself have the pleasure of driving there by road (down) 31.1 km and 5%, and on one of the biggest climbs Hammerhead shows me 50km and 1750m up.

You also don't think about climbs like these, in completely random places that take you completely by surprise:

Sure, these aren’t unique views, but they weren’t my idea of Bulgaria either. The unexpected views are the best. Especially when you’re probably the only cyclist riding that route that day… or maybe even week.

What makes this increasingly rare feeling of solitude even more attractive is the knowledge that the area is inhabited by brown bears, wolves, lynxes, vultures and other animals that may be hungry. 

Dog question.

Sofia, Thursday 2:03am

At one minute past two in the morning, I walk out with my bike in front of the Sofia airport. Except for a handful of people who flew with me, it is empty. Two minutes later, when everyone is leaving in taxis, it is even emptier. There is only me and the taxi drivers watching me reproachfully – no wonder, I arrived on the last flight and if I do not join one of them, their day is over. However, I am waiting for Laszlo (real name unknown to the editors). He is not here, but that does not surprise me at all. According to the plan, my plane landed only 8 minutes ago. How did I get there so early, when normally the wait for the bike itself is half an hour? I had the unpleasantness of sitting above the door to the luggage hold and watching the suitcase smoothly exit the plane. It is more or less as if I had opened the emergency door right after taxiing and jumped out onto the board. Laszlo is to arrive as a transport from my luxury Premier Hotel. So I ask a few Laszlos who show up around the area, but it turns out they're other people's Laszlos. I'm pretty much left alone with about two girls.

Both me and Laszlo himself would have it easier if the "parking lot in front of the airport exit", where we were supposed to meet, was in front of the only exit from the concourse. And there are at least two, and they go in different directions. Finally, he appears. I check if he has the mark of an inverted circle to confirm his identity. There is none, I get in anyway, because the bus has a big Premier sign on it. The bus is one of those in which when you drive over a "lying policeman" you temporarily stop having contact with any part of the vehicle... except the ceiling. We pull up a minute later and I hear the first Bulgarian argument in my life. I conclude that he forgot someone, and that someone called the hotel reception. They try to ask the guy if it's about the two girls I saw. I shorten my statement in English to the extent I assess his knowledge of foreign languages: "Two girls?". Of course, Laszlo either didn't understand, but he thought that I consider all those jokes about Bulgarian prostitutes to be true and that I'm starting my vacation quickly. Anyway, I check in at the reception about 15 minutes later and after that everything is easy.

In the morning I eat breakfast – enough to last for 5 days and to cover the not-so-low hotel costs (around 400 PLN with transport and breakfast). I turn my bike around, leave my suitcase in the storage room and set off just before 10 (which is our 9).

I'm riding my Factor. Exceptionally on thin tires: Dandy wheels + GP5000 in size 32c. On the back is Tailfin, which I take with me on overnight stays (because they wouldn't let me in the room with my bike anywhere), under the frame is an almost empty bag of bars that will come back to Poland with me, in front are tools and in the feeder is a FujiFilm X100V camera. I have a bit of a problem with this bike, because despite all my attempts to abuse it terribly for 5 years, it won't break down.

Thursday: the same day again

Why doesn't a Bulgarian get lost in the forest?
Because before he enters, he spreads out an umbrella and opens a yogurt stand!

This is the first joke about Bulgarians that ChatGPT has given me. He has some kind of unhealthy obsession with Bulgarian yogurt, because when asked "What not to do in Bulgaria" he replied "don't insult their yogurt." I would have thought it was a stupid one, if not for the fact that one of the first cars I saw was delivery van covered in yogurt.

I have two exit roads from the hotel: asphalt and off-road. Of course I choose the asphalt one and as soon as I leave it, I remember the description from Booking "no access from the airport". Indeed, I end up on a two-lane overpass flying for several kilometers above everything, without exits, of course. It will be a beautiful vacation. I make up for 10 km in relation to the optimal exit route. If there is an optimal route when driving a large loop - after all, in the case of a loop, the most optimal would be to stay at the start.

Around the 30th kilometre I enter green areas and for the rest of the day I ride on more or less friendly roads through hills. From quite small roads, where I don't meet anyone for a long time, to country roads, although also not very crowded. The biggest climb I've conquered is Col de Milanovo, which is 7km with an average of over 6% - as it turns out later, there are about a million such climbs in the country.

As you can probably imagine, it's hard to describe a 5-day solo trip where you spend 10+ hours pedaling every day, so I invite you to slide show.

I end the day with a result of 215 km and over 2500 meters vertically, which is a bit more than I planned. I land in a hotel called Podkova – who would have guessed that it was a hotel for horse lovers and that I would hear the horse's "pfffffff" from the morning. Before bunkering down in my room, I of course visit Billa, because it reminds me that during the entire route I only stopped at a shop for a sandwich twice, the second time being half an hour earlier at a gas station. To make it not too easy, the station looked exactly like ours, with the difference that it was closed and served by a guy at the window. Probably because it was going to get dark in an hour and the guy was thinking ahead. And the difference is that the shop here is MAPKET. Fortunately, at the previous station I learned a very useful phrase: "salami sandwich and Oshee" – yes, they have an extract from Iga, exactly the same as ours.

Around 7pm I still had some doubts. I was in the city of Botevgrad. I was sitting on a wall by Lidl and looking at the available hotels. The next town, much smaller, was 20km away, but we were also 400 metres apart vertically. A classic dilemma: finish the day, rest, maybe see a bit of the city, or arrive at the intersection of brightness and decent temperature. I write to Sylwia and get a very difficult question: "you could go, but why?". I can't find the answer to this question. So I decide to look for it while driving, it should be easier. It wasn't. What's the point of driving in circles (for a few days) anyway?

In the evening I eat about 6,000 calories in sandwiches and chips, because as the old Bulgarian proverb says: 

The smooth surface does not play.
That is
“A hungry bear doesn't dance.”

Friday: Rather Bytom or Bieszczady?

The hotel breakfast is not the kind of breakfast that a person who spent the previous day pedaling would expect. I was prepared for that, because the only breakfast that would be like that would be a buffet where you could spend a few hours (greetings to my last day self).

That day I will be driving across Bulgaria, which means a day in the Central Balkans National Park. It is a crossroads of our Bieszczady Mountains, if you could see the Tatras from them, and the buildings were moved from a Silesian village: like Romania, only worse. Worse, because in Romania the villages looked like they were from the end of the world, but they were interesting. Here they are simply ugly, abandoned and sad. The only plus is that they are surprisingly clean. In fact, the most common people you meet are old ladies with a broom in their hand. I am not surprised, it is probably the best job you can afford in the area.

I am also a bit surprised, because according to the map I should be driving on some edge of civilization. In the morning, in my head, I see myself: I get a flat tire, I can't fix it, I'm starving and dogs are eating me. In fact, during the entire trip there are moments when neither cars nor people pass me for a very long time, but somewhere there, closer or further, there is always some building.

At the end of the day, when the views are already quite perfect and appear on every side, I see a hill with a building on the horizon. I am almost certain that this is the first destination of the next day, and at the same time the main goal of the trip. However, I find it hard to believe that there is a reasonable road leading to it. It seems to be the highest hill in the immediate vicinity. Above it, there are only pointed and snow-capped peaks visible in the distance. As it turns out later - it is of course him.

It's a day where there's everything: asphalt, no asphalt, something between asphalt and no asphalt. There are big mountains, hills, some flat terrain, good and bad views - I'm considering changing the route and heading all the way through the park to Burgas, which is on the coast and from where you can return by train to Sofia. It's worth adding here that I haven't seen such nicely laid tracks since my visit to Montenegro. So I'm adding the train journey to the must-see attractions.

The day ends after 185 kilometers and 2,300 meters of elevation gain. Short, but I end it at the foot of one of the biggest climbs of the trip. Besides, I was a bit tired by the gravel (or rather the "other" category surface) and the exceptionally strong sun. I spend the night in the town of Gaborovo - it looks like the Austrian equivalent located next to the MTB trails. There is a market, there are mountain bikers, there is beer, there is noise.

It's just a pity that the windows (from which I can see the wall of the neighboring building) of my perfect overnight stay: Guesthouse Koliovata Kashta are located above one of these pubs. In the evening, in my empty room there is only me and the loud voices of at least a dozen cyclists talking in Bulgarian about the nearby routes. I even envy them a little, as it turns out later - off the asphalt it can be even better here than on the asphalt.

I only dream of regenerating my strength with a sausage flavored with dragees. The disadvantage of staying overnight at the market square is that there is no large store nearby. Miraculously, I find the equivalent of our Żabka. Not only do I get wooden cutlery there (I always forget to bring spoon fork) and there are at least 30 sandwiches staring at me from the display case. The display case, unlike in our sandwich shops, is operated by a cashier, but she is at least 6 steps to the side. So I tell the nice lady that I want sandwiches and point to the display case. She asks which ones, I go to show them up close. She doesn't come closer because she has to fill them first and only then serve them. There's an impasse, the queue behind me is growing. She asks again which ones, and I, trying to put the sandwiches together, could only answer "srakie", if I knew how to say it in Bulgarian. My brain gives up and I say "bottom right" and count on a stroke of luck. The lady asks if it's "salami"? I feel like Achilles hit in the heel, because "salami" is the only thing I can say here gastronomically, so I eat it all the time. So I come back to the hotel with 6 salami sandwiches.

I leave my bike outside the room as usual. The host finds me a place at his workshop in the gate. So I remind him with my rope to the leg of the table next to which lie saws, blades, scissors and an axe.

Saturday: Zdravko Zdrajtsev's route

The day is a sinusoid. It starts with a thousand-meter-high climb, which is clue entire trip. Because if any place in Bulgaria, apart from Sunny Beach, is famous, it is the brutalist monument of the Bulgarian Communist Party: Buzludzha Monument. This is the only place that I had bookmarked on Google Maps, before I even thought about visiting this country. My idea of the popularity of this place and my doubts about overcoming the ascent on the main road were a bit different from reality. At the top, I meet about 3 tourists and one man setting up a car stand with magnets and cups.

It's not visible in the photos, but the building is located in a place from which the view is impressive in every direction and deep down I regret that I can't go off-road with my MTB. Somewhere deep inside, in Maciek, I understand the idea of building large and strange buildings on the highest hill in the area. I would find myself in such fun. I set off down, I have at least another 150 kilometers of flatness before I find myself in a larger city, where I could see my overnight stay.

At the end of the descent there is an interesting junction. I have 180 kilometers to the east to Burgas on the Black Sea and 180 km to the west, to the capital. Of course I do not intend to stick to the national road that cuts across the country, but this is the moment when I should decide how to lead the route. I leave the decision to the wind and decide to return to the capital in 2.5 days, visiting at least one more mountain range on the way - Rila Park. The problem with decisions is always that you do not know if they were good, because you do not know what you did not see. One thing is for sure, I quickly regret it.

I don't know how the wind works in Bulgaria, but it's somehow different than ours, because from that moment (or rather from about 20 minutes later, so that I don't change my mind) the wind blows straight into my face for the rest of the trip. Even if I turn 90 degrees, it still blows into my face.

The next few kilometres are dramatic, because it is dramatically boring and dramatically warm, and on top of that the side roads are partially impassable (e.g. due to a broken bridge), so I stick to the main ones. They are divided into those where there is a lot of traffic and not necessarily pleasant, and those where the asphalt (or its remains) are not very pleasant. In the valley, my skin starts to change colour to a mix of brown and red alarmingly quickly. It is exactly as I imagined Bulgaria – a mix of Hungary and Serbia. Fields, bad roads, sometimes a gypsy village.

I reach the city with a potential overnight stay, with the beautiful name of Pazardzhik, after 210 kilometers. Instead of stopping and looking for a hotel, I senselessly continue driving, aware that it may be difficult to find a stop later. Ahead of me begins an ascent over 50 kilometers long and over 1800 meters high. It's hard for me to believe it, but it's true - I'm low, and in Rila Park the road goes around 2000 meters above sea level. I don't know what's going on in my head, but I decide to go to the next city, which is Velingrad, 50 km away (and 500 meters higher). As it turns out later, it's called the "Spa Capital of the Balkans" and it really does look like a serious holiday resort. What's more, it's accessed by a really impressive road leading through the river canyon. Very Najs. So I book a well-rated hotel "Olympic Guest House". Olympic sounds like me! In the pictures it has massage tubs, a gym, a spa and other luxuries. The entire driveway, covered late in the evening, I imagine myself sitting in such a tub with a packet of Pringles in my hand. I can even see the scene where the hotel staff finds me drowned in this tub in the morning, but still clutching the chips and with a smile on my face. Let me remind you that with 250 kilometers in your legs and 2.5 km vertically, you don't think completely rationally. What's more, the hotel is located next to Billi, which is open until 11 p.m., so I won't even have to hurry.

And everything is going great, I drive into the city passing expensive hotels, smiling people, pubs, I even pass Billa to check if it is really as close as I thought. I get to the address given on Booking and everything is great, but the hotel is missing. I type in Google Maps: "Olympic guest", and I get results in: Nigeria, Azerbaijan, Germany, Kenya. The more I look for it, the more it is missing. I call the number from the reservation, the guy says yes and that I should type in Google "Demeko" and there will be a hotel parking lot opposite. Of course, he does not understand this word on the phone, so it does not help me at all, but at least I know that the facility exists. I show the photos to the taxi driver and he tells me "4 kilometers in that direction". This roughly means: "walk away from Billa for 4 kilometers".

But that doesn't matter, on the way I pass hotels with the notes "rich SPA", "SPA infinity", "Royal" etc. I imagine myself in this luxury. The charm is broken when I arrive at the parking lot. In fact, Google didn't show it to me, because it is marked there as "permanently closed” and I’m not surprised at all. There’s an arrow on the door saying that the reception is in the basement. Basement is a big word. I enter a small room where a fat guy in his underwear is making himself a sandwich. We’re just as surprised to see each other. So surprised that he tells me to show him the reservation on my phone.

So after 12 hours of pedaling and almost one of bustling around the town, the adventure is completed by the fact that the guy puts me on the fourth, top floor without a lift. What's more, he makes me leave my bike downstairs in the gym... a room that used to be a gym. He doesn't accept that I can check in by myself. So we trudge to the fourth floor to see the apartment, then I trudge down with him to the bike to carry my luggage up, then down to ride it to Billi, then up with the bike and the shopping.

I am tired enough that my idea of drowning is close to the truth. I take a bath, go to bed with sandwiches and chips and go to sleep. Half an hour later, however, I start to wonder what the noise is and why it bothers me. The situation is saved by my small bladder. During a trip to the bathroom, it turns out that I have not turned off the water in the bathtub - how is that possible, I do not know.

Before going to sleep I draw myself a new route. I have 120 km to Sofia, and it's still two days. Instead of taking the top road in Rila Park, I decide to go around it and return along the eastern border. 

Sunday: hochalpenstrasse

I leave unnoticed – I don’t want to risk a visit to the “hotel” little place at 8 am on Sunday. The day starts, of course, uphill. The same one I started the previous evening. So I’ve already made up some ground, but it shouldn’t matter, because my “planning from bed” has significantly shortened the climb. The problem is that it’s Sunday, and I didn’t take a day off for Monday. I should head for Sofia and spend the second day working in the hotel. None of my official plans include that, but I have a track like that uploaded, so who knows.

In the morning, after a 10-kilometer climb, it turns out that the legs are surprisingly fresh (reminder: sandwiches with chips - the coach would be proud), and the terrain is exceptionally beautiful. So when I reach a town where I will either have 600 vertical meters left from yesterday's climb or start a detour around the national park... I choose to climb further, to my own surprise. Especially since the road does not look like it would be worth it. And it was, oh yes, it was.

This is a road that, in my opinion, is worth coming here for. The massive mountains in the distance look like our Tatras from Łapszanka, only somehow more. That is, less – there is practically nothing, just me, good asphalt, cows, sheep, large meadows and mountains around.

Of course, it is not appropriate to write that one of the additional reasons is the fact that somewhere in the distance, the town of Dupnica is waiting for me. I thought it would be nice to write an email to work:

Hey, I won't be there tomorrow because I'm in Dupnitsa

I'm sure it would be funnier if my boss wasn't English.

Then there's some dam straight from Goldeneye (and the whole atmosphere and the area as well) and a descent that never ends. A descent that divides at random moments into the most awful asphalt (or something that was) and very good. For a moment I even have doubts whether I should push on. The downpour approaching behind me and the snow lying on all the side roads don't help me in my decision. 

In general, in this whole Bulgaria it's like some Laszlo is trying to kill me. Even if the asphalt is perfect, it doesn't mean that sand up to your ankles won't appear on a bend or that a grid won't swallow my front wheel. Anyway, the descent itself lasts over 30 kilometers, and then dramatic things happen. It gets somehow stifling, warm, the traffic alternately increases and decreases, and the asphalt is so bad at times that if I had wider tires, I would probably drive on a field. On the way I pass ski resorts, so there must be some tourist life there.

There are two straight roads, a dozen or so kilometres long, leading to Dupnitsa, on which I feel like crying in a ditch, exhausted by the wind. It blows straight into your face the whole time, so that you have to pedal even downhill, and black clouds are waiting on the horizon. I take a picture of myself with the sign, which requires jumping over a drainage ditch, and subconsciously I already know that I've got a flat tire. I don't know where, but I know.

And indeed, 40 kilometers later, 2 kilometers before the overnight stay in the town of Kyustendil I feel that my tires are too soft – a flat tire. 2 kilometers is too far to shoe, and too close to change a tube, especially when you are dying after a fairly hard 200 km. I can't say why I didn't pump up the tire and roll to the city. For the first time in 5 years I changed a tube on this bike – a great success (before that I always rode tubeless).

Very nice hotel and close to Kaufland: Family Hotel Lazur. It is also large and well-rated restaurants with the logo of the series "Friends" and this is probably the only thing that connects this pub with the series.

It doesn't matter that I was probably the only hotel guest that day - the nice receptionist of course wouldn't let me bring it into the room. So I leave the bike in the middle of the closed hotel restaurant, arrange with the lady that she'll lock it up and that's all I see of it: it's gone. So there was no one to lock the bike up, and the process of entering the restaurant from the outside and taking it out would probably take 7 seconds. On the other hand, if I stealthily carry it to the room, it will definitely show up in the middle of the night with information that someone has stolen it. Risk-physical, I'll leave it.

Monday: A day not needed

Shock and disbelief. The bike may still be in the restaurant, but the air in the rear tire has already gone on the road. Like a true professional, I pump it up again and ride. In principle, as a man with a dozen or so years of experience in IT, I should first completely drain the old air and only then pump up the new one. Why, despite the ideal service conditions, did I not replace the inner tube, since this is the last day and I still have at least two spares? I will have a few more hours to think about this topic. Especially since it is surprisingly wet outside and I can see black clouds in the distance. I decide to take the shortest, sensible route to the capital, which will still be 150 kilometers. I plan to spend the rest of the day exploring the beautiful city of Sofia (at least that's what the internet says - the same one that says the climate is not changing, vaccines kill, and airplanes spray).

About 2 hours and 8 pumps later I decide to look for a suitable place to change the inner tube.

It's one of those days that would be nice if they started the trip. On the fifth day of driving, nothing surprises me anymore. I still feel like I'm playing Walking Dead. The only thing missing are the zombies - they've probably gone to the UK to do the dishes too.

After about 6 hours of driving I reach Sofia.
Sofia is great. Great enough that I circle the city centre in search of a decent victory kebab (it wasn't found) and escape to my hotel, stopping at Billa's for sandwiches and chips. I take my suitcase, pack my bike in the car park and go into a sleep interrupted by food. I am surprisingly fresh for 50 hours of pedalling in 5 days. Or so I think, because my conversation at the reception desk doesn't go very well.

Tuesday is the best day of every bikepacking trip.
I sit at the hotel breakfast and stare blankly at the wall with an inner feeling of awesomeness (mine, not the wall). I'm pretty sure that for the 370zł I paid for the bed and breakfast, the hotel is losing money. I work from the hotel lobby until the afternoon, and then Laszlo drives me to my plane. Having learned from past experiences, I try not to do anything important at work because I don't trust my brain. I'm pretty sure that the body has more important things to do than burn calories thinking. If I've agreed something with you on May 6, 2025, please ignore it.

For those who scrolled to the end and didn't read.

The text is slightly negative, but I absolutely recommend Bulgaria. Because:

• There are loads of flights and they are cheap. The place is also decent
• One returns home and remembers that one lives in a wonderful country and that Eastern Europe is further east than Central Europe.
• The brutalism and overall feel of visiting is pretty cool, at least for a while.
• The grounds are REALLY nice.

And most importantly, I am able to ride in my form for 5 days from dawn (or rather from breakfast) to dusk in the mountains. That means I am in exactly the form I want to be. No more, no less. Well done me, I am proud of myself.