After spending these great days in the snow we are moving further way back to Turkey.
In Bulgaria you have to get a Vignette for trucks over 3.5t – everyday we have to fill in exactly the waypoints we want to drive and to get an online-vignette – in a language we can’t even recognize the letters. What a challenge every morning 😵💫!!
Even when traveling like this is kind of inflexible we picked up some nice roads and places.
We are spending the afternoon in Plovdiv. Plovdiv is the second-largest city in Bulgaria, standing on the banks of the Maritsa river. It is the cultural capital of Bulgaria and was the European Capital of Culture in 2019 and joined the UNESCO Global Network of Learning Cities in 2016.
The city has more than 200 archaeological sites, 30 of which are of national importance. The Ancient theatre (Antichen teatur) is probably the best-known monument from antiquity in Bulgaria.
Ottoman baths and mosques in a well-preserved old quarter from the National Revival period with beautiful houses; churches; and narrow paved streets are absolutely worth to visit.
On the country side outside the cities, Bulgaria seems so poor, most of the houses in villages are falling apart or built with primitive materials, only some old farmers in the streets.
We see a lot of Bulgarian flags combined with the EU one on buildings – since 2011 Bulgaria is a EU member with still its own currency- Same EU but such a different country – economically, live standaard, environmental. It seems us so difficult to combine this under the umbrella of one European Union.
We climb up to the archeological site of the old rock city Perperikon, 20 km northeast from the town of Kardzhali. The archaeological complex Perperikon is one of the most ancient monumental megalithic structures, entirely carved into the rocks including the temple of Dionysos. Impressive – to realize that we hike up here 8000 years old rocks.
Spending the night at the Devils Canyon at the foot of a huge stewlake and hydropower complex, before we reach the boarder to Turkey the next morning in Swilengrad.
