8 November 2023, Shumen, 47.99km
Nights Botevi 36.4lev [R364]

We awoke to a puncture! Yay! The black and white kitten was determined to assist with the tube replacement, clambering all over the bike as it lay in the sunny garden.
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It was dusky when we arrived in Strazja yesterday; by the light of day, the village was bigger than I originally thought. An abandoned and derelict building, the biggest by far in town, turned out to be a school. "After 1989, the school lost its functions due to a lack of students."
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We dropped out of Strazja and back toward Targovishte. Two routes from there lead to Shumen where we are spending two nights: a northern road, the busy main arterial that continues to Varna on the Black Sea; and a quieter southern route more suited to cyclists.
We lunched in Veliko Preslav on bean soup and a cheese-n-ham omelette, then got back on the road as the temperature began to drop, lending credence to the promised rain (which has yet to fall).
Stopping only to top up a flask at a fresh mountain water point, we pushed on, guided by Google Maps without let or hindrance to our room on the lower floor of a private home.
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It is very chilly tonight, so we were pleased to find, on returning from dinner at a restaurant a little over a block away, that our host had switched on the central heating.