10 November 2023, Devnya, 57.62km
New Hotel 60lev [R600]

Yes, you can indeed see the Shumen monument from 30km away!
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Another dead snake on the road today. I don't categorise and count roadkill, but am willing to bet snakes have ranked high in terms of numbers seen. This strikes me as odd, somehow.
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A supermarket quirk: all over the Balkans, you will find beer ice cold in store fridges, but colddrinks at room temperature on shelves. Those imbibing alcohol can do so immediately upon purchase; those wanting cold colddrinks need to take them home to chill them first.
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We cycled almost 60km between Shumen and Devnya, mainly on a road serving as a quiet alternative to the Sofia-Varna motorway.
Getting out of Shumen was easy barring a segment where we (I use we loosely) had to manhandle the bikes across two railway lines raised high on cement sleepers - an oddity encountered by following a Google walking trail.
Thereafter, for two-thirds of the distance, the road was smooth tar and a pleasure to ride, then somewhat cracked and patched. But for the entire distance there was little vehicular traffic and what there was was polite and careful, not always the case in Bulgaria.
The road undulated past fields tilled and hibernating under a scud of clouds that insured no direct sun heat interfered with a decided chill on the wind. When my alarm sounded at 07h00, the weather website said it was 2°, but either that was pessimistic or it warmed up really fast before we hit the road at 09h00. The weather was fine for cycling, but by the time we reached our hotel mid-afternoon, I was cold and happy to call it a day.
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We had sourced a hotel via Google Maps which our Shumen host had booked for us. As we turned into the parking area, two men, grinning from ear to ear, came out to greet us and to show us where to secure the bikes and which was our room (number 9 at the end of a long passage). The two looked like construction workers and were in fact busy with some renovations, but appear to be owner and friend. The hotel is a little overpriced, particularly given the sparse bedding (no upper sheet and no cover on the duvet), the used toilet paper still in the bin in the bathroom, the underwear forgotten by a previous guest on the balcony, and the fact that we have not one but two pictures, exactly the same, of the Last Supper, one above each of the twin beds.
We have taken these idiosyncrasies in our stride, especially as the proprietor invited us to eat our store-bought dinner in his warm restaurant…