Today was massive. We started with a nutritious breakfast from the local bakery in Sapareva Banya. Ultimately the kids ended up with chocolate croissants. Jesse and I wanted to try the national breakfast of Banitza and Boza. Basically banitza is a white cheese byrek style pastry and boza is a “fermented sweetened malt drink”. Sounded delicious to me in theory. The drink I can only describe as being like what one might get if they drained a can of kidney beans isn’t a glass and added sugar to that slimey stuff and called it a drink. Noelle was the only one who claimed to think it was ok. We ordered “meat pastries” not knowing they had hot dogs in them… All in all not a culinary highlight.

 

Noelle’s face after she spilt the Boza

My research told me the chairlift to the Rila Lakes hike opened at 8.30 but often had big lines of at least 20 minutes. However when we arrived at 8.30 we were informed the lift was closed for maintenance for an indeterminable period. This is probably the second biggest attraction in Bulgaria and I wasn’t prepared to miss it. However the walk alone is 10k. Having to walk to the chair lift drop off point was set to add an additional 7 grueling kilometers (return) up very steep gravelly terrain. I was prepared to do it but then spotted a Jeep coming back down the mountain. After some negotiations he agreed to take ourselves and all the other uncertain  walkers up the mountain and then return to pick us up. Turned out there was him and a few others cashing in on the opportunity. This was only going to cost us about $80 in total so I decided it was worth a crack.

What a wild ride! Myself riding shotgun with Amadeus and Noelle on my lap. Jesse and Gio crammed in on top of 8 others on the bench seats in the back. Some lovely Bulgarian woman ended up being entrusted to keeping Giovanni on her lap and inside of the vehicle as Jesse was right on the end struggling not to fall out the back. She must have held on tight as he didn’t seem worried at all when we finally made it to the top in one piece.

As always the pictures don’t do it justice.

Half way through the walk I was very grateful we opted for the crazy shuttle service as I really struggled today! Maybe 3 weeks of sleep deprivation is beginning to take its toll. At any rate we had our work cut out for us. It was definitely worth it though. Absolutely stunning. Up there with one do the most beautiful places we have been privileged enough to visit in our travels. On our way back down from the summit we bumped into some of our fellow Jeep survivors from earlier. They invited us along to their picnic once they had also seen the top but unfortunately we had to decline as the day really got away by the time we had worked out all the shuttle rigmarole.

They were a lovely Jewish Israeli couple who both work as tour guides there. We have exchanged details and they’ve insisted that when we make it to Israel we are to join their travel group free of charge! They were traveling with their 2 teenage daughters and a son Gio’s age.

We were all relieved when the drivers kept their word and returned to pick us up when we called them as I think poor Gio would have come undone with an additional 3.5k. By the time we made it back down the mountain it was nearly 4pm.

Made Jesse risk losing a kid through the windscreen to snap this shot of the light coming through the pine forest on our drive down.

Luckily dinner was so much better than breakfast!

We set out for Sofia which is about 1.5hrs drive but decided to stop in for an early dinner on the way into the city in order to avoid peak traffic. The little suburb on the outskirts we found was great. A lovely woman named Ivanka came and introduced herself and all her family while I was doing a roadside nappy change. She proudly informed that us she spoke 5 different languages! Making us feel utterly useless for not yet having mastered Hello and Goodbye in Bulgarian. Dinner was also a great experience with hearty, meat-heavy local fare and friendly service.

It’s sort of sad in a way to have everyone be so surprised that we would want to visit their country. So far we are finding Bulgaria is wonderful!

I ducked next door to grab some things from the supermarket for another batch of bol for Noelle. While I was there I asked the checkout guy for local wine recommendations. I don’t think he really drank much wine himself but was curious to know if I was visiting a friend. As it turns out (according to him) people only really buy bottled wine in Bulgaria if they’re visiting friends?

Our apartment is right in the city centre but this meant we really struggled with finding parking. It took nearly an hour of driving around before we found a parking facility that wasn’t full (and this was mid week at nearly 7pm!). As tired as we all were I couldn’t go back on my promise to get the kids an ice cream.  They had more than earned one after such a mammoth day.

After we had done this and were finally walking just a few minutes further to check into the bnb – poor Noelle started asking us to “just let her sleep in the car!”. I think she had given up all hope that her parents would manage to get her into a bed for the night at all. Glad she’s not adapting to the European schedule too easily! Kids up until 10pm is definitely not my jam.

Bad enough I’m up writing this after 10 while waiting on a weird European front loader to release our clothes and a bolognese to simmer so we don’t risk eating hot dog pastries again!