The Old Capital

For once we had opted to book our tickets for a reasonable time of the day mainly because the journey was only 3 and half hours and we didn't feel we'd be wasting a day. The bus must have got all of ten minutes outside off Sofia before it sudden pulled over to the side of the road.There we sat on the bus for a good 40 minutes before an announcement was made in Bulgarian, me Nina didn't have a clue what was going on, but as people started gathering their things and getting off the coach we though best follow suit. Turns out the coach was suffering mechanical problems (we think a flat tire) and so there we sat for 30 minutes on the side of the road waiting for another bus to come and rescue us. In the meantime Nina managed to strike up conversation with a Bulgarian lady who spoke perfect english (she worked for the police in Veliko Tarnovo, our destination). She said to Nina that it was a common occurrence on Bulgarian coaches for break downs to happen. Whilst the wait was frustrating it wasn't too bad as for once the sun had found us and we were able to kick back and relax in relative comfort.

Once the replacement coach came along all went swimmingly.......for a while. Two hours further up the road the coach pulled in again, initial thoughts were along the lines of 'Ok, she said the coaches were liable to break down but come on.....' however on this occasion there were several other cars pulled in as well and up ahead we could see the odd florescent jacket. So there we waited for a further hour or so (gave me time to ring my bro on his birthday and find out that Romanian post was pretty good as the card I had sent whilst there had reached him safe and sound). Nina's new friend advised her that this time the delay was due to the fact that up ahead in the mountains was a 3 kilometer tailback and the police wanted to let it disperse a bit before more traffic headed up that way. By this time Nina had happily munched her roll (purchased earlier when I opted not to grab any food for myself) leaving me with the scraps, clearly my earlier decision making had been pretty poor.

After 5 and a half hours and several phone calls to the Hostel Mostel who were to pick us up from the coach station we finally arrive at our destination which initially seemed a bit too city light to be regarded as a student citadel town. We gave the hostel another call and in five minutes the guy was there to take us to the hostel. He suggested we never use the coach company again (as it happens the company was Etap and we were to use them a few more times without incident). Via a guided tour of the town we arrived at the Hostel Mostel and it was gorgeous. It seemed pretty small based on some of the hostels we'd stayed in but had a decent sized common room and awesome sun trap of a terrace and our room was plenty big enough for the two of us. The hostel was also located at the opposite end of the town to the coach station and was much more like what we were expecting.

After travelling for what seemed for ever we decided to chill out and freshen up for a while and just hang at the hostel for the rest of the day. However in the evening we headed out to a highly recommended restaurant with an American guy (Chris), and two English girls who were studying at Prague Uni and were on vacation. The hostel guy had pointed it out as we drove past it and said they do cheap, good quality large potions of food. Turns out everyone had been told the same and he was correct the food was awesome and the prices even better. Chris had been there a couple of time before and said he'd come just for a beer and that he didn't mind watching us eat. Turns out Chris was a pretty shrewd chap. We all ordered our mains and side dishes and as the portions came out our eyes all individually virtually popped out of our skulls. We all did our best but safe to say there was quite a bit left over so Chris happily tucked into the left overs and ended up just as well fed as the rest of us but all for the price of a beer.

After a good night's sleep it was time to tackle the Citadel. This loomed over the old town (the area where we were based). It was quite a steep walk over a bridge but the ruins and the views over the town were awesome. We wandered around these for some time before deciding to grab a drink as we were totally parched. Turned out all the drinks stalls were shut and the sun was just getting hotter and hotter. Nina ribbed me for this a bit as she had suggested we grabbed some water before going up the Citadel. Still we stuck at it despite the thirst and eventually reached the church which is centrally located within the citadel and up another very steep incline. This turned out to be a really worth while walk as not only was it really cool in the church but it was also decorated with some of the most amazing art I have seen in any church or cathedral.

It was a strange form of art and relatively modern, very dark for a church and not one picture of the last supper anywhere. It just seemed very unique and we spent ages just looking at the various scenes many of which showed people repent and others being punished. I guess you could say the art could even be seen as disturbing and it did make us wonder what Church this building actually belonged to, but still we really really like it and would recommend anyone take the trip up to the citadel to see it. It was a complete contrast to the glorious colourful murals we had seen a few days previously at the Rila monastery.

After making our descent we quickly located a cafe and quenched our thirst before heading into the main street in the town and back to the same restaurant we went to the previous night for a massive salad each. I wish I could remember the name of the place (we called it the globe restaurant as outside it was just decorated with hundreds of globes) because again the food was great (the service wasn't the best though). We continued wandering down the street and started looking in the estate agents (a habit we had picked up on our travels for some reason). Turns out you can get some pretty reasonably sized houses in the villages for under 20 grand, probably a worth while investment as Bulgaria seems to be going from strength to strength at the moment (our wallets stayed firmly in our pockets though).

That evening after having dinner at the hostel, this was included in the price and consisted of a beer and an omelette which was delicious, we headed back to the citadel but this time not to go up it but just to watch it. In the evenings if they have attracted enough paying customers they do a spectacular music and light show which illuminated the whole of the citadel with lasers and different coloured lamps and undoubtedly woke the whole of Veliko with the haunting music. The show went on for about half an hour and was absolutely awesome and even better didn't cost a thing as we watched it from outside the grounds and the view was just as good. We then went on to a local cocktail bar and spent a while drinking extremely strong 1 pound cocktails, that night we slept well.

The following day was our last full day at Veliko and we spent it looking around the town some more and wandering down to their main monument which consisted 4 of the greatest Bulgarian kings on horse back (Veliko used to be the capital of Bulgaria many moons ago). I spent a while wandering around the monument, Nina, fed up with all the walking, just sat nearby playing with a local lizard. Wandering back up past the main strip we checked out the bus times for the following day when we decided to head to Varna. We then headed into the back streets a little, in amongst which were loads and loads of little craft shops of all types. We also took a walk down by the river but this was a bit of a non event as it just ended up with us coming to a dead end and a rather small part of town. That evening we decided to catch the light show again, this time however there was no music and all seemed a bit of an anti climax. We were pretty chuffed we had caught it the previous night. Feeling that cocktails at 1 pound ago was too good an offer to pass up we headed to another nearby cocktail bar and spent the rest of the evening there.

The following morning the hostel staff called us a cab to take us to the bus station for our coach to Varna. We think the taxi driver was either drunk, blind or loved his car as he drove about 5 miles an hour all the way there despite the fact that we previously believed the speed limit was around the 70 mile an hour mark (town or no town Bulgarian drivers are crazy). This time we had a successful coach journey and 3 hours later were in Varna looking for our hostel. We had arrived there at about 2 pm on a glorious day and given as that the main reason we were in Varna was so Nina could chill on the beach for a bit we wanted to ditch our bags as soon as possible and catch a few rays as the following day the weather forecast on the BBC website said it would be around 28 degrees but slightly rainy.... how wrong were they???