19 October 2023, Sofia, 52.48km
Libera 39lev [R390]

Some walking required! But given the over 50km distance and the 830m elevation gain, this is not entirely surprising.
We are in Sofia, capital of Bulgaria, and have put down roots in a haphazard lodging in the southern suburbs. We have our own room, opening onto a courtyard garden, with a shared bathroom and use of a kitchen and washing machine. We are about 6km from the city centre, but only 400m from a Lidl supermarket. Lidl in Bulgaria is a vast improvement on even the best supermarkets in our last three countries!
We awoke for the third day in a row to very chilly conditions, but today was also misty, prompting me to put on my reflective bib, and both of us to unearth our winter gloves and to set up and use our flashing red rear lights.
Our road was very busy for 8km until the first motorway onramp, after which, while we could often see the traffic on the highway, it did not bother us. In the early afternoon, there was a 20km stretch where the old road and motorway merged. On this section, we had been assured by our Rila host we were allowed to cycle. Nonetheless I felt a little anxious when a cop car slowed briefly beside Charl. At the next offramp, my heart skipped a beat when I saw the cop car parked there. But the two occupants were not concerned with our doings. They had decanted a carload of women and girls and two dogs in a crate and were changing their tyre!
We were rewarded for all our hard work with a 5km downhill run into the city...
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Despite the below terrible review, we decided to give our local Chinese restaurant a go, and found the only thing we had in common with the reviewer was that we agreed the portion sizes were enormous. The food itself was delicious.
"Why the portion are so huge and the quality of the meat it’s so bad I order 50 lv of food my dog eating right it’s good quality for dogs not for human please respect yourself and your customer divide the portion of your chicken lemon for example by 4 and put some quality meat in there god bless you."