mnogoelesna

The day started with us driving out of Sofia about 90 minutes to Yablanitsa, a small town out in the country. The weather looked like it was getting better until we actually got to where we were to begin and then it was very grey and cool. We rode about 20K mostly uphill through beautiful forest to Glozhene monastery perched up on the hill. It was a beautiful place with centuries of history that had been rebuilt several times due to destruction from earthquakes. We had a delicious lunch up there, lentil soup, tomato and cucumber salad, Bellpeppers stuffed with rice mixture, and barbecued meats again. Very tasty! And like many monasteries, they are famous for their alcoholic beverages, this one famous for plum brandy. We didn’t taste any at lunch, that’s always a bad idea one cycling, but we got a bottle to share at dinner tonight!

About the time we finished lunch is when the sky opened with rain. We rode down the same hill we came up, went about 7 km and everybody was so completely absolutely soaked through and through, and COLD, we were looking for shelter to get out of the rain. We found a closed store with a generous overhang. The rain didn’t look like it was going to let up at all, we still had 30 km to go for the afternoon, so we all agreed to put the bikes in the van and wimp out the rest of the way, but riding in cooler temps soaking wet is not good.

We ended up in Ribaritsa small village set in a valley with beautiful green hills around and so thankful to have plentiful hot water to get the chill out of the bones.

Not much to do or see around here, we will meet for dinner at 7 PM in a couple of hours, spend the night, and tomorrow’s forecast is much better!

Herb and Paul constantly talking about other trips to take and invited me along of course. I’m sure I could take at least five trips a year with either or both of them if I could muster the time and money… Lao, Georgia, Albania, Madagascar, Tazmania just a few of the many spots being discussed with a small amount of bicycle drooling…

After arrival at our hotel, the sun came out for a little while but it’s raining again now, not a good omen for tomorrow. We did have a nice fried trout dinner, which was very tasty, and the guide brought out the plum brandy from the monastery. Had one nice glass of that!

Didn’t take many pictures today due to the rain, and no Wi-Fi here so will upload a few pics at another time…