Liberation Day

A slightly misleading title, because although it is Liberation Day in Bulgaria today, I missed the celebrations in Plovdiv and there weren't any celebrations on in Veliko Tarnovo apart from a Sound and Light Show that they have once or twice every week anyway.

Last night, in Plovdiv, I asked at the reception desk if there were going to be any processions or other celebrations going on the next morning. The answer was that although the main celebration wasn't going to be until late afternoon, there was bound to be something going on in the main pedestrian street in the morning anyway.

So this morning I walked around town looking for signs of celebrations, but I didn't see any apart from one or two Bulgarian flag stalls setting up next to the martenitsa stalls.

Although disappointed on the celebrations front, I still had a very pleasant walk. It was a lovely sunny day, I walked round two parks I hadn't been to before (Tsar Simeon's Garden and Dondukova Gradina Park) and I sat down to rest in the pedestrian square with the Roman stadium remains and Dzhumaya Mosque. 'Spring' from 'The Four Seasons' was playing out of a loudspeaker by the stadium.

Eventually I went back to the hostel to pack up and check out. I walked to the North bus station, a journey which took over half an hour. I crossed the River Maritsa and passed Plovdiv's International Fair grounds on the way.

When I arrived, the ticket lady said she didn't have tickets to Veliko Tarnovo for the time I wanted and that I'd have to wait until 16.30 for the next bus! It was only about 12.30 at this point. She wouldn't actually sell me a ticket for the 16.30 one, however - I didn't understand much of what she said in Bulgarian, but I gathered that it was somehow too early for her to do so.

I thought about going back to the city centre for a couple of hours, but I didn't want that half an hour walk to have been wasted and I was tired (my rucksack was very heavy), so I didn't. There was nothing to see or do in the area of town I was in apart from a Lidl supermarket round the corner, so I went inside, browsed and bought some lunch items to have at the station and some snacks for the journey later. After I'd eaten my lunch I read my Alexander Humboldt book until it was time to wander out to where my bus was due to leave.

The journey back took a different route to the one to Plovdiv. Instead of going through the town of Stara Zagora, the bus took a spectacular route that wound through the snowcapped Balkan Mountains.

We went through the Shipka Pass, famous in Bulgaria for being the scene of several conflicts between the Bulgarians and the Ottoman Empire during the Russo - Turkish War of 1877 - 1878.

I didn't arrive back in Veliko Tarnovo until past 20.00.