From the Mountains to the Coast

We left Bansko the day after Eva's birthday via a narrow gauge railway that was supposed to be an amazingly scenic trip. The fact that it would take us 7 hours to get to our destination on the train when a bus could have taken about 3 hours we figured would be offset by the scenery. The trip didn't quite live up to our expectations although there was about an hour of going through an amazing gorge.
We arrived in Plovdiv pretty knackered from travel but found a nice private room to stay in at the back of an old lady's house with cats everywhere in the yard. Bulgaria appears to have fixed up the stray dog problem somehow as there are hardly any around but that has left a big gaping hole which has been well and truly filled by cats. The place is crawling with them!
Plovdiv is Bulgaria's second largest city and we spent a day wandering around their old town. We were a little disappointed as a lot of the buildings were in a pretty bad way or in the middle of being fixed up so we didn't really get a good feel for the place. We were very impressed by the Roman ruins scattered around the whole town however. A massive amphitheatre was found after a landslide in 1972 and there are other bits and pieces everywhere, in underpasses, behind office blocks etc. It is amazing seeing how a modern city is built around all the preserved ruins, what a pain for developers!
We grabbed a train from Plovdiv to a the largest Black Sea city Burgas. We met some really nice people on the train who looked after us and made sure we were on the right carriage when the train split in two at a junction. Everyone is so helpful and kind here we don't even need to ask for help when we get lost or need a hand as someone always offers first. The train ended up breaking down which extended the trip by about an hour, Adam reckons it was because the engine was made by Skoda (a Czech car manufacturer).
We only spent one night in Burgas before moving on to a smaller town but the town was cut in quarters by two pedestrian strips which made it really enjoyable to walk around without having to worry about cars running you over (this is a real concern and very, very annoying-the cars park on the footpaths so you have to walk on the road). We went to a Chinese restaurant for tea and made the mistake of not looking at the portion weights and ended up with three 800g serves. We ate what we could, surreptitiously threw the resident cat a couple of bits (it liked the spicy sauce) and then rolled home to bed. It was great waking up to the sound of seabirds in the morning before heading on to Nesebar.
Photos: Roman ruins in the middle of the main shopping area, Bulgarian revival housing in the old town of Plovdiv