Melina and David were also heading west in the general direction of Sofia so as David had been having problems with his bike I suggested we travel together in case of further issues, though he was pretty sure the problem was now fixed. We weren’t in a hurry so we took the scenic route through the Central Balkan National Park. The road was fantastic, long twisty corners and short straights with hardly any traffic. As we got higher we passed through patches of low cloud before arriving at the summit.

I finally left Buzludzha after spending most of the afternoon wandering around and chatting with a Belgium biker doing a similar thing. The gravel track didn’t seem to be so long on the way down and I was soon back on to the main road to complete the remainder of the Shipka Pass. Cruising around the curves admiring the views it’s amazing how quickly the temperature reaches 35°, and how much more draining it seems to be.

Continuing north I bypassed Kazanlak on the E871 then turned right towards the E85, otherwise known as the Shipka Pass. The 13km mountain pass rises to a height of 1150m, links the towns of Gabrovo in the north to Kazanlak in the south and was the site of many battles with the Ottoman Empire during the Russo-Turkish war between 1877 and 1878. It’s a great road, very twisty and very little traffic. There are some great views of the area and climbing up the mountain the temperature drops to much more comfortable levels.

I crossed the border into Bulgaria in the mountains at a place called Makaza, just north of Komotini. It’s a small crossing but was quite busy. It would be very picturesque if not for the river of rubbish running along both sides of the road. It was proving very difficult to get any scenic pictures without including a mountain of plastic bottles, bags and miscellaneous nondescript wrappers.

There are hundreds, if not thousands of these shrines along the sides of the road. All different sizes, some new, some old and weathered, some plain, some fancy and some completely dilapidated and abandoned. It’s like an allegory for the rest of Greece.

They really need some sort of advertising standards authority in Greece. Many of the hotels and especially the campsites reflect very little of the reviews, descriptions and pictures shown on sites such as boooking.com or TripAdvisor. Very often I will use booking.com to locate a suitably priced hotel then ride to it and take a look before making a booking.

So we were all back together again at the campsite just outside of Phocis, and after a quick swim and beer we headed the couple of kilometres into town for a pizza. My first pizza in what seemed like ages, and it tasted really good.

The hotel room in Larisa wasn’t the worse I’ve been in but it was a contender for the smallest. The door to the room wouldn’t open fully because the bed was in the way and the shower was also the toilet. Still, it was very welcome last night and I slept just fine.