Tuesday 1st July 2008

We were heading for just south of Veliko Turnovo, on paper a relatively straightforward journey although we knew that we had to go over a high pass. We named this the 'Day of the Tumuli' as on the first part of the journey, travelling north from Plovdiv across a very large plain, we passed a large number of them. The Thracian burial rites involved the construction of a tumulus over the grave, so these may well have been Thracian burials. We eventually entered the foothills of the Kaloferska mountains with the peak of Botev and then continued passed a large lake. We came across a sign to the Thracian Kings Valley just a few kilometres off our route and decided to follow it. We were surprised at the number of large lorries on the relatively small road but weren't surprised to find that there were no further signs to the Thracian Kings Valley. We discovered that the road was a short cut to the main road up to the Shipka pass and as we approached the town of Shipka we saw the gold onion domes of a church catching the sun. We navigated our way to the gold and found out that it was a votive Russian church built in honour of the many Russians who died in the Russian-Turkish war in the 1870's. Over 200,000 Russians died during the war that resulted in independence for Bulgaria. We can imagine how grateful the Bulgarians must have to the Russians.
The long drive up to the pass was tortuous, we soon met two slow Turkish lorries and, given th nature of the twisty single-carriageway road, there was no way that I could overtake them. One of them stopped in a lay-by with steam pouring out of his engine but unfortunately his colleague did not stop to help and I was stuck behind him for the rest of the journey, never exceeding 40km per hour and often only doing 20. At the top of the pass we turned off to visit the large monument that we had seen for many miles as we approached the mountain. This continued the theme of the Russian-Turkish war as it was dedicated to those who lost their lives in 1876. In the hills surrounding the monument there were many smaller monuments to Bulgarians and Russians – this was obviously a major battlefield during the war.
We hoped for a better journey down the other side of the pass but were severely disappointed. We started, or rather didn't start, by sitting in a stationary queue for over 10 minutes and then started an incredibly slow descent, often stopping for minutes at a time. We eventually overtook a lorry with a trailer that was causing the problem. It had to give way to lorries coming up the hill at every tight bend and there were lots of them – bends and lorries! We passed the location of a campsite mentioned in our old guidebook but it was no longer in operation. It was then another 20km until we found an open campsite – 'Strinava' at Drianovo. We gratefully pulled in and registered. The campsite is basic but much more pleasant that Sofia or Plovdiv. I had just said to Jane that the campsite was very peaceful when, right on cue, a long goods train rumbled passed 20m above the campsite, just the other side of the river. As if they considered it to be a rival, as soon as the train had passed, a hundred (or it sounded like it) frogs started croaking in the river!
Photos: Picking lavender below the Kaloferska mountains; The Shipska Russian church.