To Koprovista (Into the Valley of Roses Rode the Two)

Off to see Sophia (Bears on Strings )

Pat's Sober Cogitations (The Curse of Possessions)

Hippy's Tortured Response (Just the Curse)

On the instruction of the deer keeper we headed on a route to Stara Zagora via two other worthy towns. None of these places were mentioned in the Lonely Planet but it can't know everything. The scenery was excellent however, the towns were the worst of communist concrete building.

Our plan to stay in Stara Zagora required a rapid rethink. Referring back to the LP we noticed Koprivista was recommended and even better on route to Sofia. It would make a long day's riding but we may find an OK motel in the Valley of the Roses on the way.

The valley itself was 'a valley' but we took a while to fathom out what the trees were in the fields, without being in flower the roses looked quite nondescript trees, with only tell tale hips to reveal their origin. This place must be amazing in the summer with the whole valley filled with roses. Apparently, the resultant rose oil goes to feed the world perfume markets, at one time supplying 60% of the world demand.

We made it to Koprovista and negotiated our first white road on the map. We had been warned repeatedly about the quality of roads in Bulgaria and had been cautious in avoiding thin roads on the map. We were pleasantly surprised. The EU had clearly recently funded much of the improvement as the road signs indicated.

Koprovshitsa is they say an open-air museum. Which seems to mean that nearly of the houses in the town are Grade 1 listed and there must be a million and one planning restrictions on any building - an architect's nightmare. The village is preserved as it was in the second half of the 19th century. Twisting cobbled streets - now you may be conversant with cobbling, but these were random sized and shaped stones in the ground - now imagine a heavily loaded bike - yes the tyres get a wedged between the protuberances. OK at high speed when you rattle over the top but bit of a mare when it comes to parking and low speed manoeuvring.

The brightly painted houses with stone bases and half timbered above, flanked the streets. This place is complete picture postcard stuff and we are thankful that we are here in the off season because I imagine that the place is heaving with grockles in the summer.

The first attempt at finding a room was unsuccessful, being turned away at the door. It seemed odd that in a ghost town they claimed all of the rooms were full, but looking at ourselves scruffy and dirty in biker gear, I can well understand their reluctance.

The next gaff was more helpful, but short on English ability. The climate being as we have said somewhat cold, and the heater in the room being somewhat small and only turned on when we arrived, we settled in for a cool evening. The en suite facilities and balcony did make up for the temperate shortfall though, and all for seven pound fifty.

Dawn brought us fair cool weather once again, but we gave conditions a chance to improve while we took in some of the sights. The museum houses were quite lovely. Built in simple materials but furnished beautifully, these were the houses of the better off, of course. One of the most lucrative professions seems to have been tax collection. La tout ca change....

Faced with the choice of a return to the main highway to Sophia or an over the hills route, we opted for the latter. By a completely bizarre chain of events, I had been looking at our carte verde the night before only to discover that we had in fact been given two days insurance rather than the two weeks we had expected. We aimed to avoid contretemps with the old bill as much as possible. Surely none would be stationed patrolling the back roads....... Indeed they were not. In fact the only company we had all the way was an eagle that followed the line of the road (obviously looking for an easy feed care of a car tyre) and a number of snapping dogs.

The final spurt into Sophia was along the motorway. The first credible motorway since Germany. In true fashion, of course, there was a contra-flow on for large stretches. Sophia is on a plateau and on this occasion, the plateau was shrouded in mist so our first sight of Sophia was when we reached the city limits. Just at that point, there was a set of traffic lights. With fantastic timing, just as we became stationary, Bike chose to lose a bolt out of the gear change linkage. Had it happened on the motorway, we could have lost it miles back. Instead, it took but 5 minutes to put it back together, although the wheeling of the bike to a safe haven at the side of the road to perform this therapy was not so easy. Lonely Planet tells us that Sophia drivers are the most aggressive in Europe. This is a little unfair. They are just in a hurry.

Usual city navigation hassles with tears and acrimony followed. Poor Hippy was struggling with a road map in Latin script and road signs in Cyrillic. I was attempting to go as slow as possible without upsetting the flow of traffic or bringing us to the attention of the old bill. Altogether the chemistry for stress.

Another obvious problem with cities is crime levels and the lack of motorcycles in this part of the world makes one something of a target for naughty folk. Trying to find somewhere with secure parking is not easy at the low end of the price range. The Sophia Hostel does, however, sport an alley way with iron gates at the end and so we checked in with great happiness. After taking all of the gear off the bike and taking it up to the room, I discovered that amongst the few failings of the BMW boxer engine layout is its width. So I parked out side the police station and chained to some sturdy bollards.

A quick tramp around Sophia to get orientated and back to the hostel to lose the rucksack brought us into the acquaintance of a charming young German chap called Chris. While he dined, we had a cup of tea and chatted about his and our tours. He had set out intending to travel the length of the Danube hitching on working boats. His plans changed when the traffic reduced to one or two boats. Shame really, I can quite see the delight in drifting along like that - probably more so than being cooped up on the Trans - Siberian.

Sightseeing in Sophia is not complete without the spectacle of an impoverished local towing a bear around by a nasty looking bit of iron through the nose. At that point, we decided that our sightseeing was complete. To be fair, the centre of Sophia is considerably more picturesque that the rest of the 'working' Bulgarian cities and towns through which we had past. Regrettably, the thermal baths were still closed and the facing stone is falling off the 1300 monument leaving an unattractive steel and concrete skeleton behind.

The Internet cafe was very cheap though and we spent a lot of time getting up to date on our blathering. On the second night, as we set off to complete our scribblings, all was not well. A bit of soul searching had been needed for some time and it came to a head today. It started with the camera. I was happy to carry it around in its case from my neck, but Hippy, understandably, preferred for it to be out of sight. My point was that there were moments when a picture would disappear in a second and I wanted the camera to hand. Her opinion was that the camera displayed our wealth in an 'in your face' kind of way. We resolved to carry the camera in a plastic shopping bag, but it took quite a bit of arriving at this conclusion.

It is clear that the problem will arise time and time again simply by the arrival of the bike in poorer places. We struggle to be tourists at times because we fail to have the insensitivity required. Hipppy is less at one with the idea of travelling by bike as it automatically attracts attention. My mindset is that we attract attention as travellers anyway and the bike is merely an extension of that. The whole biking experience is not quite as fair to Hippy as it is to me. It is essentially a macho kind of thing to do and this precludes to some extend the ability of lady bikers to maintain their femininity. Its OK when you go to the Sturgis Harley Davidson rally when you can wear tarty leather gear, but practical biking clothing loses something in the cut.

Other unfair things have been that my recurrent problems of bunions and piles have not been anything of a problem so far on this trip. Hippy on the other hand cannot avoid the curse and has been unfortunate to suffer two bouts of cold sores. The second being, I believe, due to the runny noses associated with biking.

I am prone to bouts of feeling generally down. I fear that this is one of them. Thoughts of 'what am I doing?' are recurrent. Admittedly the thought of still being in teaching would I know have been more depressing as you go round and round in academic circles, dealing with syllabus changes and the same predictable misbehaviour. But the same thought keeps impinging. Is there more in this for Pat? - the answer is probably - yes. In which case, 'why am I doing it?'...... To get away ...... to find a place of contentment?... or merely to be with Pat?.....

MAYBE FOLKS BACK HOME MIGHT TAKE THE HINT HERE THAT ALL IS NOT AS EASY AND FUN AS IT MAY SEEM AND TAKE THE TIME TO DIP IN THEIR POCKETS FOR OUR CHOSEN CHARITIES. HOPEFULLY, THIS WILL GIVE US THE BOOST WE NEED TO MAKE IT ALL SEEM WORTHWHILE.

I know that on a journey like this there were bound to be down times. I hope we make it through this one. Maybe our plans to rest a while in Greece will do the trick.

The time has obviously arrived for wound licking and so a speedy trip to Greece is called for. One mad dash would probably kill us and so we planned a single stopover on the way calling in at the Rila monastery and a visit to Bancko.