Bulgaria: Relaxing, Recovering and Repairs

There have been times when Steven and I would take off in the morning to do a long day of sightseeing and upon returning, declare over and over again how wonderful it felt to be home. Bijou is our home, the place we relax, where we are the most comfortable and feel completely secure. After being away from her for 53 days, I can say without hesitation that there really is no place like home.

Before we left in March, we had spent a full week making sure Bijou was clean, organized and secure so when we returned, we could just unpack, relax and recover. When we first saw her, then walked through the door, we could see she was in great shape. No flat tires, scrapes or bruises, no moldy smells, no mouse activity, no nothing! We always breathe a sigh of relief when we find her as we left her. My only concern was whether or not she had suffered during the below freezing temps in the first few days after we departed for Italy. A cursory look told us she had fared just fine, but a deeper dive into her systems required that we first move from the storage slot to a camping spot with all the hookups. The problem was, I couldn’t remember where I hid the ignition key.

I am a strategic hider, meaning that even if I don’t remember where I hid something, chances are I can put my hands on it anyway because I know where I would most likely have put it. Steven is more random, a stuffer. When he looks for something, he tears the rig apart. So as I was pondering my likely hiding places, Steven started yapping at me, “what about here?”, “did you look here?”, “could you have put it …?” He was irritating me to no end so I firmly but politely (I think) kicked him out. I looked around, gave it some thought and then found the key. For a tiny little rig, Bijou actually has a few nice hidey holes.

Anyhoo, we got her moved and Steven did a more in-depth inspection confirming that from what he could see, our girl had survived the winter unscathed. He filled her water tank and checked all the taps. That’s when we noticed water rolling out of the boiler closet into the kitchen. Upon further investigation, we found that it was leaking from under the bathroom sink, causing water to run down the hoses and onto the floor. We were tilted in such a way that the water then rolled out of the bathroom, under the boiler in the closet and onto the kitchen floor where we could not only see it, but clean it all up!

Our spot is at the end where the long, long trailer is parked. But on this day there was an Italian group comprised of 17 motorhomes that came in for one overnight, so we had to move so they could all be together. We had a perfect spot to watch the action when they all arrived and to our surprise, they had parking down to a fine science. Half an hour after they arrived they were all parked and outside for happy hour. RVers are the same all over the world. 🙂

Steven called the storage guy and asked if he knew where we could get repairs and he set an appointment for us a few days later at a motorhome rental place in Sofia. We were basically without water until then, but that was a minor issue. Turns out that we just needed to replace the bathroom faucet, which was fine with me because I never really liked the one we had. The spray was too fine and it got everywhere if it was turned up fully. Once that replacement was complete, the leak disappeared. The repair guy turned out to be one of the best we have encountered, so while we were at the repair place we got a few other things taken care of. A light on our dash indicated we had a light out but we sure could not get to it, such is German over-engineering. This guy not only changed the bulb, but he beefed up our wiring, too. I wish all repair guys were as good as him!

Somewhere in there is a light bulb that needed to be changed, but we couldn’t do it. Not only did we not have the right tool, but we couldn’t even find the burned out bulb! Well played, German engineers!

Over the next few days we unpacked and got Bijou in order again. We were pretty happy just sitting there in the storage parking lot. We rode our bikes to the grocery store and got caught up on all our laundry. The washer on site, which had been unavailable during freezing weather in March, was now working, thankfully. After about a week the owner came over and asked Steven, “What exactly are your plans?” We didn’t really have a plan, but it seemed like it was time for us to come up with one.

We were so happy to go food shopping and finally be in charge of our own meals. One thing we missed so much while we were walking the Via Francigena was fresh vegetables! Sometimes all we wanted was a big salad for lunch, but most often ended up with pasta or pizza.

Back when we first entered Bulgaria in early March it was still winter and things looked kind of bleak. Aside from the Rila Monastery and Sofia, we had not really seen much of the country. Now that spring had arrived, everything looked a bit more inviting, so we decided to pick a couple of places to visit on our way north to Romania.

We said goodbye to our happy place, feeling really grateful that Bijou had such a safe place where she was well cared for during our absence and made our way a few hours east to the lovely city of Veliko Turnovo. After a few days there we continued our Bulgarian trip to the southeast to visit the awesome Founders of the Bulgarian State Monument in Shumen, and then spent a relaxing evening along the Danube river before saying goodbye to Bulgaria and crossing the border into Romania. The best way to share these places with you is with photos, so here we go!

Veliko Turnovo

We stayed at a campground outside the city, which was nice because we were the only ones there and it was so quiet and peaceful. The problem was that there was not a single level space and all the sites were grass. With rain coming, we knew how that was going to end.
After one night, we moved onto the road because the storms were forecast to be fierce and those forecasts were not wrong! That little trailer behind us was just being stored, no one was in it. Steven was outside grilling when all of a sudden a huge squall came blowing through. In less than 30 seconds he was completely drenched. He stayed out there that long because he literally couldn’t move the wind was so strong! The grill got drowned and our awning was nearly torn off, but Steven managed to secure it. Honestly, it was frightening! We finished cooking our pork tenderloin in a skillet and it was kind of meh.
We took a taxi into town to go on a walking tour, and this was our starting point.
There was a lot of Brutalist architecture in Veliko Turnovo. This was a stone carving on one of the buildings.
Lovely viewpoint overlooking the city. Everything was so much greener than when we first arrived when it snowed every day for a week.
This is a street filled with artisan crafts like woodworking, jewelry and so on,
The costume is typical of those worn at the annual Kukeri, Bulgaria’s festival of monsters.The costumes are very large and tall and are used to chase evil spirits away. Also… a kitty.
After our walking tour was over we returned to this store so I could buy a spoon to add to my collection.
I chose this one, how cute is he?
According to our guide, the Cyrillic alphabet was created in Bulgaria and he said to ignore anyone who said otherwise. For us, it was very difficult to decipher.
Street mural and me.
We also decided to have a Turkish coffee that was made in the ancient tradition of brewing it in heated sand.
This strength of this coffee will knock your socks off, but it was absolutely delicious. I love a strong muddy coffee, although I usually add cream. We drank this one straight up and tried not to swallow any of the grounds at the bottom.
Us and our tour guide, Iliya from Free Veliko Turnovo Walking Tours. He was great and we learned a lot, not only about the city, but about the country too.
The oldest street in Veliko Turnovo, ul Gurko. It’s the most photographed street in Bulgaria!
This monument with four kings on horses surrounding a sword was built in 1985 to commemorate the 800th anniversary of the Second Bulgarian Kingdom and the proclaiming of Veliko Turnovo for its capital. Sofia is now the capital of Bulgaria, but for a while, it was VT. In 1985 when the monument was build, Bulgaria was still under communist rule. So the sword, which was originally meant to be pointy side down with the handle in the air, had to be fashioned upside down because the handle resembled a cross, which was not allowed.

Founders of the Bulgarian State Monument

This interesting monument is situated on a hill overlooking the city of Shumen. There are 1440 steps from the town up to the monument, which here I am contemplating. I really wasn’t interested in walking down, but I definitely found the idea of walking up intriguing (we drove to the monument). Then I saw a guy who had done just that arrive and he was sweaty and breathing hard and that was the end of that.
This monument was built in the Cubist style in 1981 to commemorate the 1300th anniversary of the First Bulgarian Empire. The scale of this place is very impressive. Look for the person in the bottom middle of the photo to get an idea of just how large these figures are.

Along the Danube River

We moved on to the city of Ruse on the border with Romania. The Danube river flows between the two countries.
We had a free overnight spot right on the river, where we enjoyed a lovely sunset on the Danube. The next day, we made our way into Romania.

And finally, another artwork from Steven. This time he painted one of the gigantic statues from the Founders of the Bulgarian State Monument. If you would like to see more, you can keep up with what he’s doing by following his Visual Art page here.


Next up: Romania


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10 Comments

  4. Kay

    Love your blog – have been following for a while. Quick question, how do you go about your research about best places to visit and park up? We have a lovely 7.43m long Mobilvetta moho, and generally use Park4night for where to stay. We’re hoping to drive through France in September and tour the whole of Italy, and feel we need to be more organized, rather than go where we fancy! We come from Guernsey in the Channel Islands.

    1. 2chouters

      Hi Kay, thanks for much for taking time to comment. We also mostly use Park4Nite as we travel. If we are planning to stay a few days in a place where we know we will be site seeing, etc., we tend to choose full service campgrounds. Otherwise, we typically look for aires, or free spots as we travel. We try not to nail down too much, because it is difficult to be spontaneous if we so choose. In France, in September, you will be spoiled for choice. Same in Italy. Aires and sostas will be everywhere offering a range of services. Enjoy your travels!

  5. Laurel

    The Cubist architecture is fascinating and fabulous! Love all of the interesting things you discovered, from the street mural (with Linda) to the costume from the Festival of Monsters (with kitty). I enjoy so much all of the details you describe in your posts. It makes me feel like I’m traveling along with you. And yes, Cyrillic is very challenging. I learned to read it when I was living in Yugoslavia, but I’ve forgotten now.

    1. 2chouters

      I think Cyrillic languages are the most difficult to learn because nothing is familiar. Although we don’t speak French, we understand some just because we see it so often and recognize the letters. LOL, otherwise, we are hopeless!

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