Day 9 Bulgaria Shiroka Laka

Due to my panic nature I had us rushing to put bags in the car this morning an hour before breakfast. I did not factor in what we were meant to do then with the extra hour. After breakfast we headed in the direction of Shiroka Laka. As I had too many routes planned the night before I started the wrong route when we got in the car. This meant that we missed Dolen town and the ringing of bells from Saint Nicholas Church. Due to time constraints and unable to backtrack we headed for Leshtan.
Taken from Wikipedia.
Leshten (Bulgarian: Лещен) is a mountainous village in Garmen Municipality, in Blagoevgrad Province, Bulgaria. It is situated in the Dabrash part of the Rhodope Mountains. In the early years of the 20th century it was a busy village with more than 500 inhabitants, most of them non-Muslim. Nowadays there are only a few local permanent inhabitants, but many of the old houses have been restored and renovated as summerhouses or guest-houses. They were built in the second half of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century in the architectural style typical for this region of the country.
The panoramic views of the Rhodope mountains were truly breathtaking.
The drive to Leshtan was very scenic and interesting. We passed lots of sheep, cows and goats, either on the hill side or crossing the road causing a traffic jam. We noticed not many bicycles here but horse drawn carriages instead.
On the way, Ruby exclaimed that there were big chickens in someone's backyard only to discover later that they were turkeys. Ruby loves looking into gardens and backyards when we are driving.

From Leshtan we drove to Ognyanovo Public Mineral Bath. Nothing like our mud pools, this was like a very small swimming pool that was deep to our shoulders and very hot. I was only able to stay in for 3-5 mins at a time then I sat on the edge to cool off before entering again. We stayed for a total of ½ an hour.The entry costed us 2.50€ each when the writeup said 1.50€. I think we were charged tourist prices.

Driving to Devil's Throat Cave we got lost because I was too busy talking with our daughter that we took the wrong turn. As a result of this error, we had to miss Devil's Throat Cave as the last guided tour would have left by the time we got there. We'll see it in the next day or so.
On the way to Shiroka Laka, Ruby read about an Old Roman Bridge. The bridge was from the Roman times.  We had a to use the WC there but it was super disgusting, nature's toilets are still the best. We found a sign with a picture of a wild boar on it and assumed it was to alert us of the dangers of the presence of wild boars but instead it translated to having to be careful of the African Swine virus.

We finally got to Shiroka Laka, where we are stopping for the next 3 nights.

Taken from Wikipedia
Shiroka Laka is famous for its authentic Rhodopean houses set in tiers on both banks of the local river. The old houses were designed in the characteristic architectural style of the Rhodopes by the noted local building masters, and feature two storeys, oriels, built-in cupboards and a small cellar with a hiding place. The thick white walls hide the yard from the outsiders' eyes. The yard is small and slab-covered and has a typical stone drinking fountain in the middle. Some of the most famous houses are those of the Zgurov, Uchikov and Grigorov families.

We are staying at Hotel Kalina.
Dinner at Hotel Kalina was so good. We had samal (cabbage rolls) wild beast stew and patanik, a potato pancake. The meat was very lean and dark. The samal wasn't as good as Dorina's, our Romanian friend in Perth.
The waitress said that the wild beast was pork. We are not so sure. It tasted like fresh corned beef to me.
When we were getting ready for bed, we had a Kindle crisis. The books would not open at all, and would not even download again. Clever Ruby managed to fix it by resetting the Kindle and crisis was abated.

Walked 12.6 kmWeiterlesen