Beyond Kostenec the road east ran steadily downhill, following the railway line along the valley towards the old Bulgarian Capital of Plovdiv. A train went past, the driver waving to us. Good progress. Uneventful. Then the small town of Belovo. On the outskirts they were stacked high on the pavement. Further in, shops full of them. Nothing else. Some businesses appeared to be temporary. Whilst stocks lasted. Toilet rolls. Kitchen rolls. Nappies. Many different colours. Looked like a lorry load to me.
Then swift progress to the sizeable town of Pazardzik, already more than half way towards the evening’s stop at Plovdiv. Early lunch and a chance for Myles and I to study our respective maps. Debatable who had the least useful map. Both big on scale, small on detail. Comes of having the entire country on a single sheet, together with swathes of Romania, Serbia, Macedonia, Greece and Turkey. You could have a stab at pronouncing place names – shown using the familiar Latin alphabet – but marrying them up to Cyrillic road signs was a bit more tricky. On a plus, you could go days without re-folding the sheet.
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