In which Sid and Doris cycle out into the rain and through a lost world.
It takes a certain amount of courage to deliberately cycle out into the rain. And today Sid and Doris demonstrated exactly how much of that they had by finding various administrative tasks to do until the rain had eased off. A bit.
So to start the day on a positive note: we did not have to pack our waterproofs because it was already raining, but not much. All told we’ve done 92 kilometres and 777 metres of climb, not much of it in the rain, to Emen which is near nowhere but is en route to Edirne.
Breakfast at Pleven’s Hotel Rostov was in a room for 200; three of us were there, overseen from a distance by the breakfast executive. Generally not a bad effort but with an atmosphere deficit epitomised by the single endlessly repeating Muzak track ‘You can tell everybody, this is your song’, electronic instrumental version. Still breakfast only lasts a half hour when you are keen to get on. Oh, yes, keen. Inspiration for the Hotel California.
In Pordim we went in Babette’s ladies cafe with its excellent balloon ceiling ornaments. The pavement sweeping women came in to join the lady pensioners (plus Sid and Doris). Though the coffee machine had just broken down we all had a good time, though Sid’s taking on the chocolate doughnutalike may have been a mistake. Microwaving the coffee worked well.
Pordim also had the best Brutalist monument we have seen so far.
Further along we came into a town with quite a variety of kebab shops, cafes and mini marts for lunch. So we were unable to choose between them and went on to Levski, once a railway town which still has its rusty marshalling yards. We were pleased to find the self-proclaimed Hyper Market, easily as big as the Eastney Convenience Store. Here Sid found a cheese pasty, an apple, a cherry juice, a cold tea drink and a chocolate wafer bar all for about £2.40.<
The theme of the day has been depopulating villages so we have had big roads with little traffic. The village centres all have large squares with statues and memorials. Though there has been a certain amount of climb we are both feeling pretty OK.
The Eco Hotel Emen is a collection of sweet little houses set in woods and gardens with a lavish supply of ponds and standing water. The patron is a pipe chewing, largish, hairy fellow who showed us to our housette. We had to stop en route to put on enough DEET to finish the traverse with only minor mosquito wounds.
Tomorrow we are using a field path ‘road’ to cut down mileage and climb. We had sworn off muddy tracks but it really does seem the least bad route.
There is nowhere else near here for dinner so we are having chicken at 7.30. We are not afraid.