Our last cycling day 😂

Official:
Day 9 – Dospat Dam – Velingrad Today we ride among three beautiful dams, century old coniferous forest and vast meadows and finish in Velingrad, the spa capital of Bulgaria. There are over 90 curative and preventative springs and another natural phenomenon as well as the Kleptuza, the biggest Karst spring in Bulgaria, with an average discharge of 1200 litres of ice-cold water per second. Relax in the thermal water pools to recover and reflect on a great ride before our farewell dinner. Spa Hotel Dvoresta. Ride 65 km. 700 m ascent/700 m descent.

Me:
There are biking days, and there are glorious biking days that remind one’s soul of the gift that cycling travel and good health really is. Today was the latter…

Cycling around two lakes formed behind two dams, we rode uphill as much as down. about 700 m up total today, that’s the equivalent of riding up Hatcher Pass. But somehow the downs seemed to go on forever!

(Speaking of Hatcher Pass, I forgot to mention that yesterday when we were riding through the steep canyons, part of it reminded me of that old narrow part of HP road before they exploded the road wider. You know, the part where people used to spray paint things on the rock wall? Remember Rory? Ha ha!)

At our lunch break, Pano had horse meat sausage. An unusual opportunity that he said tasted “interesting” but his tone suggested no need for me to ask to try a bite. I had a grilled chicken thigh and absolutely delicious grilled potatoes with dill and garlic. Scrumptious!!

About a dozen German motorcyclists arrived after us, glad we had ordered already. They were uniformly overweight compared to our group.

On arrival at the Dvoretsa Spa Hotel, I quickly showered and did laundry, then went to the spa place to get a 30 minute massage which the guides had asked at lunch if we wanted one. Valerie, Herb and I agreed to get one. It turned out to be an excessive oil skin rub, my least favorite style, not much depth to it at all. Well, you never know until you try! Valerie just showed up poolside and said her massage (by the same woman) was too hard! Whatever…

For a while, all of us hung out by the giant pool at this hotel, there’s probably enough rooms to fit 500 people here, but it appears there’s only about a dozen! Gorgeous sprawling pool and on one end and it was an entire structure with waterslides and such on the other end. Paul and I ordered a Gin tonic poolside, that was nice! After hanging out by the pool for a little while, we all cleaned up and grouped for the final dinner together.

We walked a short distance through a very nice park from the hotel to the restaurant that we had seen advertised on the ride in.

The meal at the restaurant was fantastic, everyone raved about the food, it was very similar traditional Bulgarian menu as usual, but very very well done. I ordered shops good salad and a pig knuckle that was slow roasted and very delicious. Bulgarians eat very well! We added a local Merlot that was delightful, topped it off with a bit of rakia and I had fresh strawberries over Vanilla ice cream. Very very good!

There was a really good five piece band actually playing background music at the restaurant, some traditional Bulgarian music, Greek music, and Gypsy music as they were all gypsy musicians. That opened a discussion at the table about gypsies in Bulgaria, the perceptions and realities of who they are and what they do. But apparently it’s common for them to be outstanding musicians! These guys certainly were!

Stan was too sleepy to continue so he walked back to the hotel with Pano, the rest of us took a quick loop around the town with Orlan before heading back to the hotel. There is a great pedestrian walkway through the center of the town square lined with restaurants and shops, most of which were already closed. It is about a month early for the tourist season here, but it’s obvious Velingrad is a happening place in the heart of winter and summer! After all, it is billed as the spa capital of the Balkans!!!!!!

Some nice toasts at dinner to thank our guides for their efforts over the past 10 days. Hard to believe this trip is over already, but all that remains is the few days for Paul and I to see the Black Sea. All of us will drive to the airport in the morning, Paul and I then will get a rental car and drive the four hours to the Black Sea arriving there around dinner time.

Bulgaria has been very nice, I would certainly return here to explore more. We talked with Orlan about doing another bike trip here or Romania or Greece, he can organize all of those so we’ll see if any of that talk materializes into another trip someday…