In which Sid and Doris know they are in the Ottoman lands by visiting the town mosque.
All around the historic part of town the municipal workers are trimming the grass and making ready for the trippers from the Danube boats. There were four coaches by the pier this morning so there must be some tourist business. We saw some buses last night and given the local amenities Doris suggested the cruisers were being taken to a winery for dinner.
The tourist office was shut this morning so Doris took a picture of the town map with the key sites to see. We have seen the Liberation Monument and have taken this carefully-cropped picture which cuts out most of the weeds, rusty bits, and un-guard-railled drop.
We are on the Danube for the last full day and have walked up to the excellent Vauban style Vidin fort. It is in great condition; if our knees were in better shape we could have explored all sorts of towers and stairways, and as it was there were plenty of handrails to cling on to.
The mosque (our first on this trip) is also on the town plan (we skipped the now-disused synagogue but we did look in a church just to hedge all our bets) The mosque had its door open welcoming visitors, and displaying a very liberal interior.
On getting in last night the desk asked for cash in advance. At the cafe we could not order a second drink until we had paid for the first. Presumably they do have a problem with people running away from the bill for two lemonades.
You will have noticed from your careful daily scrutiny of the Epic Map that we have indulged in a big northerly loop to go and see the Iron Gates, but it is now time to resume our south-easterly progress. At the cafe we spent more hours with the aged printed map of Bulgaria together with Doris’ PC maps which have a more recent view on motorways and bypasses which might lighten the lorry traffic on key roads. The country is inconveniently oriented for south easterly bicycle travel. The east-west mountains and north-south rivers make for a difficult set of trade offs between major roads, hill roads, river crossings and places that have accommodation. There are a couple of days in the plan that will be a test for the Extreme Energy Conservation strategy. Probably we will need biscuit and water stops every few kilometres on some stretches. We may look at the map when we stop but in practice we know we will just have to go up the road until it stops going up.
However, there is good news. We have also found a route, published by a bike shop in Istanbul, from Edirne (our first big town in Turkey) to Istanbul. It stays north of the city and finishes off with a commuter ferry into the centre to avoid riding in one of Europe’s largest and sprawliest cities. If all goes well, insh’allah, we could be in Istanbul on day 50, or so.
We finish this entry by caving in to Mifter Bat’s demands to show you the front of our hotel.
IMPORTANT POST-SCRIPT
We went out in the evening gloomily determined to show you a lot of pictures of a crumbling town full of abandoned buildings.
And then, in the distance Doris heard Folk Music. And where there is Folk Music there is…
So we headed to one of the crumbly squares and there was a Folk Dancing competition, just being done by local people for local people. With beer and benches and plenty of opportunity to sit around enjoying it which we did.
But the best bit was looking at the people around us. Below this is a picture of a girl (in Western dress, texting) and her friend behind her (in the local red dress and petticoats) doing the dance steps as they stood there. And the second picture is of other people who were waiting to dance or who were simply enjoying the scene, forming a circle to dance with the same steps (if you look very carefully you can see the Official Performers just to the left of the head of the chap in blue shorts).
