Up at 5.30 ready for a 6.00 am pick up . Vasco was to be our driver for our trip to the railhead at Dobriniske some two hours twenty minutes away from Trigard . This was new for our driver and he was not sure of the way so had been on Google and got it all sorted but it was a good trip through another part of the Rhodopi mountains towards the Rila monastery and Melik, apparently lovely places to travel to but not enough time to see everything we need to move along.
Sadly we arrived to find out the narrow gauge rail trip was not to be, the station manager told us the train had had a crash and we would have to go on the bus instead at 10.20 am. A real disappointment but these things happen . There did not seem to be any information of this anywhere but people were working on a bridge further along so maybe that was the reason.
We sat in the sun,a couple of cinderallas waiting for our coach outside the railway station,another rustic vehicle turned up,hardly a coach
but it got us there with many stops along the way . This travel experience was interesting in itself as bus drivers have stops,dismount have a smoke , talk to their friends as they require . The bus conductor laboriously hand wrote our tickets on the bus,
you cannot book ahead so it is a time warp.
The scenery was interesting and we passed Bulgaria's highest mountain,Mt Virhen in the Perin Ranges, also the site of skiing facilities for tourists because it featured a ski tow.
We passed through Bolovo,known as the toilet capital of the world for the production of toilet paper . Great place to be caught short.
We also passed through Bransko,Velilgrad,spa towns along the route and arrived in Sempteveri as planned for out train trip to Plovdiv.
An old dunger of a train pulled up and on we climbed for an hours trip to Plovdiv . More about this lovely place later.
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