Veliko Tarnovo

From Sofia, we took the train to two other smaller cities in Bulgaria - first Plovdiv, then Veliko Tarnovo. Plovdiv has a lovely old town with Ottoman style architecture and windy cobbled streets, and we spent a relaxing two nights there before jumping on a train to Veliko Tarnovo. Hostel Mostel, the excellent hostel we stayed at in Sofia, also have a hostel in Veliko Tarnovo and I have to admit that was one of the things enticing us there. We were not let down, the hostel was excellent and we met some great characters there too including a man named Girard who we spent much of our time there talking to. Girard is from Newfoundland, Canada (his friends call him "Newfie") but has been travelling since the late 70s - he pauses now and then to work for six months, then he is off on the road for a few more years. As you can imagine, he is filled to the brim with thoughts and experiences. Even though he is getting older, Girard was so full of vitality and energy that he had the presence of a young man. He has a strict diet now due to a particularly grisly bout of intestinal worms that he was lucky to survive but it sounded like his past was quite reckless in terms of drinking and drugs. We both thought he kind of resembled Iggy Pop in looks and demeanor. He had recently travelled through Central Asia and his stories and impressions were fascinating. Girard travels without a bank card (he only recently acquired a bank account, but still doesn't have a card - so travels with mountains of cash on him), he has no email account, no cell phone, and carries only a small well-worn leather over-the-shoulder bag (he has been through three of these over his 30+ years on the road). We so enjoyed our time with Girard and part of me was sad I couldn't just add him to Facebook and keep track of what he is up to - but a bigger part of me was excited to have met someone travelling in this nomadic and free style, a dying breed!

Veliko Tarnovo was under Ottoman rule from the 14th century until a successful uprising in the late 19th century. In 1913, there was a big earthquake which caused much of the city to be rebuilt, thus most of the Ottoman style architecture was lost. One of the workers at our hostel told us that the story of the "huge earthquake flattening the town" was somewhat suspicious and quite possibly the people used an earthquake as an excuse to rid themselves of the Ottoman history surrounding them and rebuild anew.

After a relaxing three nights in Veliko Tarnovo, we boarded the night train to Istanbul, and spent the night pretending to be on the Orient Express.