41:37.26N    24:40.6E

Elev 1541m

We’ve driven up into the Rhodopi Mountains in Bulgaria.  Like the bit of Greece across the border, this area has a large muslim population so there is a mixture of nice looking mosques and quite ornate christian churches.  We have not heard a call to prayer since we left Turkey, religion here seems much more understated.

 

This area is truly beautiful.  There are alpine meadows everywhere that look like pristine golf courses, punctuated by pretty villages with rustic looking people (I dare not say peasants!!) working in the fields.  It could be a movie set!  The satnav was not impressed with the endless switchback mountain roads and at one stage gave us a route which was a never ending circle; if we had not switched off we would have disappeared up our own exhaust.

 

The first few pics show our bush camp, and the hike we did up to a mountain hut high above, via a steep, well marked trail.  From the top we could look down on our camp.  There were butterflies everywhere and conifers showering us with great gusts of pollen.  We made a great dinner of fried spam and stuff, and REAL vegetables, which i was longing for after several days of slabs of feta, and omelettes.  We were next to a monet-esque lake with fishermen standing like statues for hours on end.  We didnt see anyone catch anything.  Once the sun started to go down we virtually had the place to ourselves with just birdsong and frogs croaking, the inevitable buzz of mozzies (lots of repellent needed) and the crackle of our camp fire.  We watched the sun go down and the moon come up and much later (as this was the longest day) in a pitch black night, millions of stars in a cloudless sky.

 

All very pretty – but COLD!! The cold really took us by surprise after sweltering in Turkey and we had to keep adding successive layers during the night.  Today though (22nd June) we have blistering alpine sun again and we are in an almost new, beautiful pension for £15 a night, in the village of Shiroka Laka.  The drawing is our view.  There are ski resorts all around here, it would be very interesting to try Bulgaria.

 

The other picture is an ad we saw.  We are trying to work out what it it advertising.

 

And finally, Stef’s joke, from istanbul.

A chap in a restaurant trying to sell us a table said Enjoy Istanbul, but it came out like “enjoy Yourstanbul”, and I said “enjoy my stumble???” and everyone laughed, then I sdaid “oh you mean have a nice trip?  I thought it was funny anyway.