Day 2: Burgas to Plovdiv

When we woke up this morning it was a bright sunny day in Burgas. We headed downstairs to investigate what our hotel's breakfast buffet had to offer. It seemed like quite a small breakfast buffet after the extensive one we'd enjoyed at BA's expense in Madrid on Tuesday morning, but we did get a pancake each which was good  

We didn't need to check out of the hotel until midday, so we decided to go for a stroll into the centre of Burgas. It seemed like a good idea in theory but in practice, because our hotel was so far away from the main centre, we pretty much needed to turn around and come back as soon as we got there  It was nice to have a walk by the sea in the sunshine, though. The beach was a lot busier this morning than it had been yesterday evening!

As we walked through the seaside park, we found the little church which we'd passed in the dark last night. 

The park itself was really pretty. It stretches for several miles along the coast and so we could walk almost the entire way from our hotel to the town centre without having to go out onto the road.

The Black Sea looked a beautiful shade of blue this morning  

We made it back to the hotel on time to pack up our things and check out, before setting off back towards the town centre again. We just had time to get lunch in town before catching a bus to Plovdiv at 3pm.

My original plan had been to take the train to Plovdiv, which would have involved departing at around 9am and being in Plovdiv for early afternoon. Unfortunately, after investigating the Bulgarian trains website in more detail, it turned out that although you can buy tickets for some trains in advance, the daytime train we wanted to take between Burgas and Plovdiv wasn't one of them. I thought about just turning up on the day and trying to buy a ticket, but it wasn't 100% clear whether a reservation was needed for the train or not, and various things I read online suggested that this was going to be a really busy weekend to travel, with some trains completely booked up, due to it being the last weekend of August and lots of Bulgarians needing to head back home from the coast. In the end I decided not to risk it and to book us two online tickets for the bus instead. I think it was a good decision, because when I eventually did buy the bus tickets, I got two of the last four seats on this particular bus.

We ended up eating at the same restaurant as last night, because there was plenty of space to sit outside with our suitcases, so our first two meals in Bulgaria have been Greek  Tim had fish with Greek potatoes, while I had chicken souvlaki with pitta bread. The entire meal only cost around £18, including Tim having a pudding of walnut cake and me having a much-needed espresso  

Then it was time to find the bus station, which wasn't too far away, just around the corner from Burgas train station.

I was a bit apprehensive about whether we were going to get our assigned seats or not and, when we got on the bus, we did indeed find other people sitting in them. The good news is that they moved when Tim insisted that they do so and in general, there seemed to be a lower tolerance towards people sitting in the wrong seats compared to other south-east European countries that we've travelled in. Two other people who found someone else sitting in their seats caused a minor commotion, which ended with the bus driving back to the bus station and the conductor making the people move to the seats they were supposed to be sitting in.

Our bus left Burgas at 15.00 and was due to arrive in Plovdiv at 19.30. We had an air-conditioning vent above our heads and for the first few minutes of the journey we enjoyed some beautiful cool air... before the lady sitting behind us asked us to re-position it because it was blowing on her. The rest of the journey was rather warm, although some other people on the bus were wearing coats  I'm guessing Bulgarians must suffer from the general Eastern European fear of draughts!

Our journey took us through miles and miles of sparsely populated Bulgarian countryside. Parts of the interior of Bulgaria are quite mountainous and for a lot of the journey we could see mountains in the distance.

We arrived in Plovdiv more or less on schedule and set off to find our apartment, which was less than a mile from the bus station. I'd had a message from the owner telling us to call his mother when we arrived and that she would let us in. Tim navigated us to the correct road without too many difficulties, but once we got there we struggled to find the correct building. We were just starting to feel confused, when a lady came up to us and asked if I was Clare; the owner's mother had come out to look for us, which turned out to be really helpful because I'm not sure we would have found the building otherwise  

Once we got inside, we found we had a lovely apartment which seems like amazing value for the £29/night that we're paying!

There's a nice bedroom...

...a large living area with a kitchenette...

...and a little balcony outside.

We even got a little present each - the lady makes things out of felt as a hobby and gave us two little decorations which she said we could hang on our Christmas tree  

It's dark now, so exploring Plovdiv properly will have to wait until tomorrow, but first impressions are positive