Sofia to Dupnica

September 20, 2015

I knew I had a long (for me) day, so I ate a good breakfast and packed a sandwich, and was careful about food and drink all day. It worked out well.

The ride out of Sofia had a lot of traffic, and I'm glad I chose to leave on Sunday morning when things weren't too busy. I routed myself on one of the secondary roads to get out of town. I was a little surprised that it was cobbled a good 4 miles out from the center of town, but fortunately there was a bike and pedestrian lane with tarmac.

It was a steady incline to get out of town, no coasting for me, and then got steeper as it headed into the mountains.

It leveled out after Pernik, rolling a bit. The town of Radomir was my focus, as I had a turn off of the main road I was on, a much smaller road, and I didn't want to miss the turn. Radomir was a bigger town than I expected. In fact, it is a city, and it greeted me with lots of old style Soviet housing blocks.

It really was not nice. I had planned to stop for lunch, but chose to just find my turn and move on. After the turn, there was some heavy industry.

Big factories near Radomir. I took this picture before I reached a sign indicating no pictures allowed.

But then the road turned into a very nice country road with nice scenery and few cars. There were no big trucks!

The countryside and small towns were more attractive.

The clouds rolled in in the afternoon. Lots of thunder, too, but no rain.

After about 10 miles, the road turned and ran parallel to the highway. It had gotten quite hot, and I stopped at a gas station for an ice cream and cold drink. While I was there, I took advantage of my new SIM card, any went on line and reserved a room for tonight. The room is at the Hotel Rila in Dupnica.

The rest of the ride was uneventful. There was another small climb, then a good downhill, and then the highway ended, dumping a lot of traffic onto my small road. I expect I'll have to deal with that heavier traffic tomorrow.

I found my way into town and to the hotel. It's a decent hotel, at the equivalent of US $26 per night. I have a room with AC on the seventh floor. There is a TV, but only Bulgarian channels.

The thing about the hotel is that there has been a wedding today and the reception is going on in the restaurant. I'm not sure if it was supposed to be outside, as it's raining heavily now. I had walked around town, and it seemed like other dining options were busy from the wedding, so I had decided to eat at the hotel. That's when I found out that the reception is in the restaurant. However I was told there were 2 restaurants and I could eat at one of them. It really wasn't set up to serve dinner, but I ordered a salad and a chicken dish suggested by the waitress. The salad was good, but it took forever to get the chicken, and it was not cooked through. In other words, it was raw. I told the waitress I couldn't eat it, and asked for the bill. They gave me a 20% discount. I went back to my room, and there is a fruit plate and a bottle of water. I'm not sure that they could have gotten it there so quickly after dinner, or whether it was just a welcome gift or something related to the wedding. I'll have to ask in the morning. Breakfast is included in the room rate. I hope it is okay.

In the Dupnica center. I'm not sure what this is, but it called out for a picture.

Today's ride: 83 km (52 miles)
Total: 2,718 km (1,688 miles)

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