Ultimate Balkans and Transylvania Travel Talk Tour: Plovdiv, Day 7

Day 7: Friday 14th October 2022

Start: Ruse, Bulgaria

Finish: Plovdiv, Bulgaria

Currency: Bulgarian Lev

Temperature: 9-17 degrees, Sunny and Crisp

This morning we were up at 7am for an 8am departure from Dunav Plaza. The breakfast was fantastic. Similar to the last few days, it was a very wide buffet of meats, cheeses, salads, breads, cakes and more.  On the bus the temperature was reading 11 degrees Celsius which I do believe! Once we were in the sun it started to warm up a bit.

Our first stop was the Tsarevets Fortress (10 Bulgarian) which was about 1.5 hours drive from Ruse. Up the hill we took in the village, listening to the babbling river below. At this time of the morning there were very few other tourists around so it was lovely to have the place practically to ourselves. After 45 minutes we met Kaan back at the entry and walked down into the ‘town’. The street was very limited but instead of going into the next Church option, a few of us elected to walk and find icecream. A little supermarket was exactly what we needed and we picked up the Bulgarian equivalent of cornettos.

Another hour later and we came to a similar ‘minature village’ museum as we saw previously, this time in Etar, ‘Ethno Village’ (I do not recall how much these tickets were as we skipped the village. I’d guess about 20 Bulgarian?). A group of us opted to have lunch at the Mekhana Etura restaurant across the street, where we enjoyed bread, salad, chips, soup and kofta (‘meatballs’) which looked more like meat pattys. A few people also very much enjoyed snacking on the sweet grapes hanging from overhead vines. I am told they tasted like bubblegum. I decided not to pay to enter the village because walking back along the road there is a good path the entire length of the village which offers a prime birds-eye view into the park.

At 2.15pm we boarded the bus for our final leg toward Plovdiv where we are staying tonight. On the way through we saw beautiful mountain ranges with green and yellow leaves smattering the countryside. As the grey clouds followed us down the ranges and out into the valley of roses, we came across the Ethnographic Complex Damascena, Rose Producers (tickets 8 Bulgarian due to it being the ‘off season’). We commenced a tour at 3.15pm. During June/July the valley is full of the blooming Bulgarian rose, being harvested for the production of rose oil. We had an hour to look around the beautiful facility, guided by a staff member who explained the process of distillation to remove the oils from the petals. A double distillation process is used to refine the oil extracted. The grounds were lovely and in many of our groups’ opinion, very newly redone. In the showroom we were all dabbed with the rose oil before having free time to examine the multitude of other products available including; Rakia and Rose themed liquors from a grape vine outside, honey from local keepers and every kind of rose product under the sun!

At 4.15pm we were back on the bus and making our way one and a half hours to Plovdiv where we are staying for the night. Upon arrival we will check straight into the hotel and have the opportunity to run wild for dinner. Tomorrow morning we will have the walking tour of Plovdiv before heading off to our final city of this leg, Sofia.

By 6.30pm we’d arrived at the Best Western in Plovdiv. The hotel itself is new and very well finished, with beautiful rooms and newly renovated bathrooms. We had to hand our passports over for photocopy upon arrival. Hilariously, this was the first time our guide Kaan learned my name. I know I could have gone and introduced myself to him, despite having had piecemeal conversations with him over the past few days, but I couldn’t help but laugh that we’d been all travelling together for over a week and he still had no idea who I was.

Due to the weather many of us decided to stay close to the hotel as it is over 30 minutes walk out to town for dinner. So a few of us decided to take a walk back down the street to take in some of the architecture from the Communist reign before making our way to the enormous supermarket nearby for supplies and a quick pizza dinner from Alibaba’s inside the shopping centre. The rain started to fall around 10pm by which time we were already in our rooms enjoying a quiet drink to ourselves.

Accommodation: Best Western, Plovdiv Bulgaria