Rest day in Sofija, Bulgaria - yay!
Tracey dealt with some laundry/housekeeping tasks in the morning and we then went for a bit of a walk around the town.
Found ourselves in the ubiquitous Irish bar for a combined lunch/dinner and then returned to the hotel for more laying around.
We've decided to have another day off tomorrow as we're not yet ready to do further battle on the tandem.
Saturday 16 August 2008
Another rest day in Sofija, Bulgaria.
Miles surfaced early to apply a bit of TLC to Disharmony II outside the front of the Sheraton. Attracted a few quizzical glances though thankfully, not the wrath of the hotel management.
Did very little today apart from concentrate on serious 'recovery'. Eventually left the hotel for dinner at a nice Greek restaurant after doing a short circuit of a few bars etc to validate our choice of venue.
Back in the saddle tomorrow,
Sunday 17 August 2008
Back to the fray today. Feeling much fresher, fully energised and ready to deal with whatever comes over the next couple of weeks before we reach the finish line.
The plan today is to cycle the 60 or so miles from Sofija, Bulgaria to Blagoevgrad also Bulgaria. Our destination is just a few miles short of the Macedonian border so we'll be crossing into our 11th country early tomorrow.
Had a lonely breakfast in the hotel restaurant. Being Sunday, seems everyone else was still snoozing in their beds.
On the road just after 09:00, more blue skies and the promise of serious heat later.
Luckily we'd already sussed our route out of the city as we didn't want any repetition of the 'difficult' route finding during our way in.
The first 10 miles followed the E79-1, uphill and for the initial 5 miles, on Pave. Pave? Cobbles to you and us.
We initially felt a bit sluggish after being inactive for 2 days but this was just due to the upwards incline and rough road surface. Normal service would be resumed as the road levelled and the cobbles gave way to Euromac (AKA tarmac).
Continued along the E79-1 accompanied by good scenery and pleasant rolling hills. These beauties were the deluxe versions, i.e. the ones with the fantastic, 40mph descents following reasonably sensible climbs.
Made our usual pit stops at just over the hour and 2 hour marks in roadside services. The second, seemed to be in a valley completely occupied by used car garages. We passed these for mile upon mile and there seemed to be no apparent reason for their location.
As the clock passed midday and entered early afternoon, the temps. Continued to rise. We were expecting up to mid 30's Celsius today.
Presently we arrived at the outskirts of Blagoevgrad and made a bee line for an hotel Miles discovered on the Interweb yesterday. Happily, it both existed and was very nice and we were very shortly in our room enjoying the aircon.
A decent return to battle with no injuries, accidents or complaints to report from the troops.
Today an utterly sensible though blooming hot 61 miles and a respectable 770m of ascent. Total trip 3177 miles.
More Southerly ramblings to follow.
Back soon. Miles & Tracey.
