A Bulgarian cycling experience

First day started with a massive hangover. Being in Sofia always leads to drinking Sofia Electric Brewing beer.

About the trip, leaving Sofia was a bit stressful due to quite some traffic. But as soon as we went on smaller roads, it became fun.

Amazing day into the mountains. Especially the climb into Belogradchik is very nice. Almost no traffic on the part.

Okish day with a stop in Lom. Not a nice city. Part wise, the day was a bit dull. After Lom, it was raining quite heavily and the road become bad with cobble stones. But nice landscape along the Danube.

First stop was the only nuclear power plant in Bulgaria. then it was an up and down. Nothing special!

We actually wanted to ride to Gabrovo. My companion had heavy knee problems, so we need to cut it short.

We needed to skip this part due to an injury. It was quite difficult to figure out, how to get from Lovech to Gabrovo with the bikes. In the end, we took a taxi. That was about 70lv (=35EUR). I guess this was only possible because my travel companion for this trip is Bulgarian. There is a bus and also train, but nobody was able to tell us, if we can take the bikes or not.

It started with a nice climb to the Shipka Pass. Very smooth to ride with bearable elevation gains.
At the pass, we decided to do a detour to the Buzludzha monument (Monument House of the Bulgarian Communist Party). The monument thrones over the area like an UFO.
The road from Shipka pass to the monument is doable with a road bike, but it’s not really fun. A gravel bike would be better. The downhill from the monument is fun.

Easy last day! The last 30-40km into Plovdiv are quite annoying along a big road with quite ruthless drivers.

Plovdiv is a very nice city!