Our second rail trip, Plovdiv to Burgas. some productive countryside, especially sunflowers, mixed with depressing old factories. One enormous old oil comlex with only a few colourful new pipes. And rain.

People. Out enjoying the sun at last.








Even the kinder kids.

And getting on with their jobs. OHS issues, especially here. The short ladder is held in place manually, but only on a bent old board.





This shows how big the yellow-legged gulls are, like chooks! They are everywhere, and noisy. But this old Crusader knows how to
 see them off.

The Black Sea. Both Burgas and Varna have enormous Sea Parks, large wooded public spaces before the beach. Our bus to Varna was only a minibus, and rather a rattletrap, passing condos waiting for resort visitors, some in the midlle of country, then over wooded hills.

George was our taxi driver for the morning, getting us where no bus could and much cheaper than a hire car. Nothing much doing in the birdwatching line, So George took us to an ancient Thracian tomb. All hidden under a grass mound or tumulus. Sort of doughnut or mushroom shape inside round a central chimney. Deified but dead chief was buried here and rituals sounded like a good orgy.

Curator insisted we take a CD of Bulgarian history for Australia.

With the language, we are indebted to the kindness of strangers every day.

Here are St Cyril and St Mathodii who invented their own cyrillic alphabet based on the Greek. The flowers are from the 24th, their national celebration of this work. A minibus is mhnhbyc, and all the rest is too hard to share.

Another thunderous wet afternoon.





Tomorrow to Constanta, Romania.

And for those who have birthday's right now....

or who wish to remain loved..

but perhaps not so heralded....




HAPPY BIRTHDAY  !!


LOIS


AND


STEVE

Sometimes.....     someone.....     just reminds you.....      of so much...

With apologies to all of you....     who I am reminded of as I write this.... 

but I haven't got the appropriate photo to insert just here....  [Neil]

Central Bulgaria, Plovdiv, an old Roman city, & one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities of Europe.

It is quite a place.  I have never been in a place with such ankle-breaking cobblestones !
Huge granite small boulders - it was fun watching a dolly-bird on the toes of her high-healed stilettos...

One man was a key player in the city's restoration.
His name was Atanas Krastev,
    also known as Nacho Kulturata...  !!

We visited his house, full of paintings by other folks, of the man himself !

The architecture was from 100 years ago - in wood : as at right !

Sandra liked the nails in the doors to his compound, large ones, driven through to prevent it being hacked open !

They were very security conscious in those days !


Philip of Macedon (Alexander the Great's father) was one of the founders.

But the Romans followed about 300 years later.
We saw a Roman Wedding and then a re-enacted Gladiator fight.  The one that was wounded & so had 'lost' (but he was not dead) - was despatched by the man in black with his mallet !  Life was cheap !  

Decorated Houses..              City walls & Gates....                   Cobbled places...

Later Ottoman influences are still strong -

even the chimneys suggest it, too !


But it is very arty, as Sandra found.


Tomorrow we take our second train to beside the Black Sea, & hope to see some birds...

      
\\\\\\     

May 26, a sunny morning in Plovdiv.

The weather has been damp with downpours, none of which we needed to be out in. Locals are complaining and we have been wearing our lace-up shoes and leather jackets.

Leaving Kerkini Lake at 6.30, we had a taxi to Lethotopos, where we waited in the wrong spot for the bus. Another bus driver set us right. We actually needed to be going the other way! So to Iraklia and another bus to Serres. The taxi driver took us to the station (the bus to Bulgaria is a substitute for a train), BUT the bus doesn't go on Tuesdays. I had paid him, but asked him to wait till we got establish with the bus. He was a useful back-up in the negotiations. So the we asked him to take us to a small hotel, and wait while we were sure of a booking. Not only did he then carry our bags in up the steps, but he wasn't going to charge us another fare! This was typical of the help we received in Greece. Of course Neil paid him again. So an unexcpected night in Serres. Got a haircut and hairdresser warned us of seismos and Richter 6. Apparently near Sofia there was an earthquake.
Visited the local museum, an old church, seeing stones and statues from 12th C back to 4&5 C BC, all locally found and all seen when the old guy put the lights on for us!

Long damp bus ride. Danielle of the hotel (spelt XOTE and anothe character for L not on this keyboard) was very helpful. Next day, the duty lady heard we had come from Greece. In effect she said, "Waht did you want to go there for? Greeks are no good, always thinking, scheming how to get the better of you. Not like us open-hearted Bulgarians." So there you go!

Neil among the big soviet style buildings of government.

Guards, not as fancy as Athens, but very Ruritanian.












And statues that reminded us of the Burgers of Calais.              

Morning in a square. People going in and out of Church. National Celebration Day of the Cyrillic Alphabet.

                                                                         
Michail. When we established that we were not Austrian but Australian, he said he'd pay a French waltz!  We get that Austrian thing a lot and responses in Deutch.

Ah Mah, with personally chosen name Lampros after an interest in Greek History. Solar panel salesman for Europe from Shanghai. Met id delightful Chinese restaurant.

Neil says...
Surprised to hear a steam chime whistle as I waited for Sandra to come back from the Ladies. Just time to run up the platform before it pulled out. But what a start to our train journey Eurail 2012! Wonderful!

Old way. Seen from the train.




Today, the Roman ruins of Plovdiv. Last night, at the excavated end of the stadium, saw enacted a Roman wedding. The stadium runs under the full length of the main street.