Bulgaria: Musala (8/28)

We’ve been using Google to avoid toll roads and most of the time this works very well. However, as we neared the Greece Bulgarian border, Google started telling us to do some odd manoeuvres. We pulled off a dual carriageway and then had to do a U turn before coming back to the junction and crossing the 4 lanes of traffic. We then followed a service road for a couple of kilometres to bypass the toll booth. I wasn’t particularly keen on having to repeat the same manoeuvre but to this time also push into stationary traffic.

The highways agency have obviously cottoned onto this little bypass, when we got to the turning there were bollards and a large pile of soil. We watched someone attempt to mount this and subsequently bottom out their car; so thinking better of it, we turned around and paid the extortionate €2 toll.

It may have been worth doing this stressful manoeuvre however in order to get further up the border queue. It took us a whole hour to get the kilometre between Greece and Bulgaria.

After this craziness we quickly bought a vignette online and headed for Rila Monastery. It was quite late by the time we arrived so we decided to pick a nearby lay-by and head back in the morning. The monastery sits in the hills and so we had a pleasant cool nights sleep and I even managed a discrete bucket shower.

In the morning we were some of the first people in the monastery and it was great to have a look around before all the crowds arrived. The monastery is a UNESCO world heritage site. It was founded in the 10th century and is regarded as one of Bulgaria’s most important cultural, historical and architectural monuments and still houses around 60 monks.

We then has some decisions to make. There is a cable car part way up Musala, the highest peak in Bulgaria, however it is closed on Mondays and Tuesdays. We thought we’d like to walk up, but also get the cable car down to save our knees.

This issue with this was the largest hut was also closed on Monday and Tuesdays, we had read about a more basic hut, nicknamed “Icy Lake” (as the lake it is situated by is partly frozen all year round). They didn’t have a digital booking form only a couple of phone numbers on a Bulgarian hiking website.

We gave them a call but it quickly became apparent their English was as good as our Bulgarian. No worries we thought, there is a tourist information in the larger town nearest the peak. We headed there and said to the guy we wanted to hike Musala, it quickly became obvious that he didn’t speak much English either but told us the cable car was open and the hike to the summit was only 10km from the valley so obviously not a problem.

This made us a little unsure as we are definitely capable of hiking 1600m up and down in a single day we are trying to limit the decent time for Olly’s knee. The other option would be to carry camping equipment just in case the hut wasn’t open.

We decided to drive to Borovets which is the little ski town in the bottom of the valley below Musala. Ski towns are always feel like ghost towns in summer, and this one had a distinctly Soviet feel. We managed to find another tourist information and this time the lady spoke excellent English. When we explained what we wanted to do she seemed alarmed as the hut we wanted to stay in did not even have electricity. She very kindly rang the hut and confirmed that they would be open the following evening.

Although still a little sceptical we headed off to find somewhere to stay for the evening before getting an early night. We found some nice pine forest half an hour away which was next to a pretty river. It was all very lovely until some horses came past and then following them a hoard of biting insects. We were still at 1000m altitude which meant a nice cool nights sleep.

In the morning with many sandwiches packed (in case we were unable to buy breakfast or dinner at the hut) we headed back to Borovets. The hike started with a steady incline in the pleasant shade of the pine trees. We then passed through a surprisingly boggy section which reminded us of Scotland, we assume all the water must be coming from snow melt. We didn’t see many other people and two hours later we got to the first (closed for summer) hut. There is a small lake here and a new shiny ski lodge is being built. After some snacks we carried on up the more rugged path past some more lakes until we eventually reached the icy lake hut. We even spotted a chamois and baby chamois on the way. There didn’t appear to be anyone in but the door was open. We assume the owners must have been having a siesta. We ate some sandwiches and tackled the remaining two hundred meters of ascent to the summit.

On the summit is another small hut, (closed to the public) and two weather stations. The newer looking weather station is sponsored by the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences Institue for Nuclear Research and Nuclear Energy. I looked this up later and it seems the weather station was involved in the research of cosmic rays.

We had our summit photo and admired the view for a while before heading back down to the hut. When we arrived the owner was there and we managed to mime that we wanted to sleep the night and have some dinner. She showed us inside, the building is an interesting triangular design with no natural light downstairs. I assume this is because the snow can be very deep here in the winter. The bunks were situated upstairs, which had many windows, we actually ended up with a private twin room.

The lady then explained to us that the toilet was “the panorama” to the left outside of the hut and the drinking water was the stream to the right of the hut. We hoped we guessed this mime right as this would be a bad thing to get mixed up. I now understood what someone who had written a review about the hut on google meant when they said the toilet was “outside”.

Olly discovered that the left hand side of the hut was the toilet as when going for a pee he discovered a lot of other peoples “panoramas”. We then sat in the pleasant afternoon sunshine for a few hours. When it got dark the hut owner started up a generator to light the dining room. At this point we were keen to have dinner but weren’t sure whether she was going to provide it in her own time or whether we were meant to ask. Eventually one other person we saw in the hut asked for something in Bulgarian and was presented with some lentil soup. We followed his example, ate some tasty soup and headed for bed.

In the morning we headed back down the hill a slightly different route towards the gondola station. We were pleased to realise the gradient was relatively gentle and flat from the lower hut. As we approached, we met streams of hikers who had caught the first lifts of the day. This confirmed we had made the right decision by walking up when the lift was closed as we had successfully avoided the crowds.

I found the gondola a little nerve racking as part way the gondola cabs unclamp from the single wire and clamp onto the lower one. Olly assured me that obviously the cab wouldn’t move unless it was clamped to the wire so it was fail safe. We then realised that the way the cabs get pushed onto the new wire is by being bumped along by the ones behind it...

I also wasn’t reassured that the control panel for the gondola looked worryingly similar to the control panel of Chernobyl reactor 4 in the recent TV series.

Twenty five worrying minutes later we were safely at the bottom station. We had decided to stay a night in the beautifully soviet-looking ski lodge which was very cheap on booking.com. We thought we would just walk in and see if we could get it cheaper but unfortunately when Olly went into enquire he was told they had no rooms for the night. Perhaps it was the t-shirt he had worn for three days hiking.

Instead we stayed somewhere cheaper further towards the Romanian border. This hotel was also conveniently located near to the Prohodna cave known as “The Eye’s of God”. Thirza and Paul had been climbing here before so in the morning we set off to have an explore. The cave was much larger than I expected and impressive in itself, it was even more beautiful because of the two eye shaped holes in the ceiling which beams of sunlight penetrate through.

We spent a while taking photos and tackled one climbing route near the right eye. Whilst on the route a family walked through with someone playing some kind of bagpipes made from a goat skin. They actually sounded pretty good considering it looked like a goat had been inflated and had its legs replaced with pipes. The climb was interesting and had a large more tricky section with no bolts, it was also covered in spider webs so after one route we decided to call it a day and head in the direction of the Romanian border.

Greece: Mount Olympus (7/28)

Leaving Faenza we headed to Ancona to catch our ferry to Greece. Originally scheduled so we’d arrive in Patras in the early evening, and could enjoy the sunset along the scenic route to Athens. Unfortunately it’d since been delayed twice and we’d now arrive at 01:00 in the morning.

The ferry ride was pretty uneventful, and we killed time on the ~24 hour crossing, by watching the new, hit TV show Chernobyl — which we’d thoroughly recommend.

Disembarking in Patras we drove straight to Athens. Our friend Oli had some time before starting her new job, and joined us for the Greece section of our trip. We arrived at our Airbnb at 4am, and got some much needed sleep.

After a lazy morning we headed to the Parthenon. First, we visited the museum which hosts a large number of the archaeological finds from the acropolis. On the upper floor it exhibits the friezes from the Parthenon, some touched up with plaster replica and also empty spaces left for the ones held at the British Museum.

I found it interesting that, as the Parthenon has been seen as so historically, religiously, and architecturally important throughout the ages it’s been repurposed as both a church and mosque.

After we’d been around all the exhibits we headed up the acropolis to see it up close.  We walked round the base, before making our way up to the top. From the top we could appreciate the Parthenon in the late afternoon light. The smaller temples to Poseidon and Nike were just as impressive and in better condition.

At closing time, with the throngs, we retreated to a outcrop just outside the gate to watch the sunset. That evening we sampled some tasty Greek food — including some octopus, souvlaki, calamari, and baklava — at the humbly named God’s Restaurant.

The next morning we left Athens, and after navigating the rush-hour traffic, we’re headed for Meteora. Meteora had been recommended to us by two people independently, so we decided we had to visit.

It’s a collection of rock pinnacles on which a number of monasteries have been built. Originally built in the 1300s, they perch precariously on top, previously only accessible by removable ladders.

We’d arrived in the late afternoon, as the monasteries were closing and so toured the scenic road, admiring the landscapes from various vantage points.

We camped nearby, seeing our first ever wild tortoise!, and the next morning went to visit one of the monasteries. Inside the church was heavily decorated in gold and illustrations in a typical orthodox fashion.

After a brief tour in the monastery, we set off for Mount Olympus. We’d decided to split the hike over 3 days, to minimise the amount of ascent and descent in a single day — managing to book the hut the day before. We started hiking in the early evening, for a short 2 hour hike to the hut, making it there in time for dinner and well-deserved glass of wine.

The next morning we got up early, and after some breakfast and large amounts of faff, we set off uphill. A friendly Danish gentleman had explained the route to us over breakfast, and stated that the first hour was shaded in sparse tree-covering; the second hour was up steep scree path; and the third and final hour scrambling along the ridge to the summit. Our route followed pretty much as described.

This was definitely our most technical peak yet, with a grade I scramble to reach the summit. This was also one of the more popular peaks we’re climbed, with some people obviously struggling on the scramble; and others refusing to attempt it.

On our way back, we made a small detour to a subsidiary peak, which had been recommended earlier by our Danish acquaintance. From here you got an alternative viewpoint of the main peak.

Then we headed back down to the hut, where Oli left us. She’d planned to meet her Mum in Bulgaria for a holiday, so she continued downhill to hitchhike to town, in order to catch a bus to Sofia. She later told us her ‘calves and thighs were on fire’ after that mammoth day.

Our next day was much more leisurely as we made our way down to the van. Although we did get caught up in the Mount Olympus Marathon, a gruelling race up and down the mountain. So as we descended gently a number of people passed us at much greater speed.

Before making our way to Bulgaria, we decided to spend some time at the beach. We wound our way to the second finger of the Chalkidiki peninsula, to a pretty beach overlooking the next mountainous peninsula. We had a brief snorkel in the crystal blue sea; spying fish and sea urchins.

We spent the night overlooking the same view from a beach slightly further down the coast. With a brief coffee stop the next morning, in the slightly-too-quiet off-season beach town of Sarti we made our way to the Bulgarian border.

Faenza

We decided to have a holiday from van-life and visited Olly’s mum (Caroline) who is spending the summer in the Northern Italian town of Faenza. Throughout June Faenza has the Naballo Palio Di Faenza where the five “Rioni” (districts of the city) challenge each other to win the Palio (the standard). There are historical re-enactments, flag waving competitions, jousting with wooden lances and entertainment evenings with food put on by the different Rioni.

On our first evening in Faenza we were treated traditional home made pasta cooked by Romana who Caroline is staying with. The pasta traditional to the region is called strozzapreti which translates to “strangled priests”.

This was a delicious start to the Italian eating we were intending on completing this week. Over dinner we chatted, with Caroline translating between us and Romana — as we don’t speak any Italian and she a little English. We were impressed with Caroline’s translation skills especially as we threw in some odd phrases like ‘sea cucumber’ and ‘moon jellyfish’.

The next day we visited Parco Bucci, this little local park has an eclectic collection of interesting animals including peacocks, leucistic (white) peacocks, rabbits, an assortment of water fowl, and some chickens with funny feathery feet. Later Caroline took us on a guided tour around the town where we saw the piazza’s, market, interesting architecture and the ceramic studio that Caroline has been working in. She also pointed out her mosaic of the town that had to put up in the courtyard. This has been getting a lot of attention, however this is partly because the river is in the wrong orientation. We also noticed an ant trail going up a whole story, this is definitely the longest ant trail I have ever seen.

There are a number of bars in the piazza which, in a similar style to Spanish tapas, provide a mini buffet for their patrons. This seems like a great idea although the waiter was having to spend a lot of his time scarring the pigeons away from the mini pizzas.

We had a drink and some snacks in the lovely evening sun watching the world go by before moving to a restaurant and enjoying the second Italian delicacy on our to eat list; freshly made pizza.

Thirza and Paul arrived the following day and after some catching up, eating and drinking we made some plans to tackle a via ferratta route. We had read this was on sandstone but thought naively that the crumbing sandstone we have in the south east of the UK would be rare enough not to occur elsewhere. We were wrong, this was quickly obvious as the names of the climbing routes at the crag were engraved in the rock face.

Undeterred we set off, the route was actually quite a lot steeper and more technical than other via ferratta routes we have done in the Dolomites. There was the additional slippyness of soft sandstone, however I think this was a good level of “sporting ness”.

Half way up we reached a wide ledge which had many hard looking climbing routes, some of which had extra wooden holds hammered into the soft sandstone. The next section of via ferratta had quite a tricky crack climb section, on reaching the top we signed the visitor book and walked down to a small chapel which was also located on the wide ledge. Here we had some lunch, admired the view and watched some Italian locals tackle some of the hard overhanging climbing routes.

We headed back to Faenza, with a quick gelato stop, to be back in time for the evening entertainment put on by the black rioni. This was the most impressive volunteer run catering I have ever seen with a full a-la-carte four course menu. This was all cooked fresh and very tasty. Olly even managed to tackle all four courses.

The entertainment then kicked off which was a Queen tribute band. They were very good although I think Freddie was far more into it than the rest of the band and most of the crowd. However, by the finale he managed to get everyone up singing along.

The following day we had an outing to Brisighella, this is a medieval village only twenty minutes away from Faenza. Despite its close proximity the scenery is very different. Whilst Faenza is very flat, Brisighella sits over three hill tops. On the first sits a 14th century castle, the second a 18th century church, and the third a 19th century clock tower. We climbed the hill to the clock tower and were awarded with amazing views across the village and the hills. The clock is a little unusual as it only has numbers 1-6 with dots in-between to show quarter hours. Therefore to tell the time you need to know whether its morning, afternoon, evening or night.

The hills are rich in gypsum, which was transported from the caves above the village through a covered walkway behind a set of colourful houses. In the evening we headed to one of these mines to see a concert. This was traditional medieval music, however the band also played some more modern classics like “We No Speak Americano” towards the end. We exited the mine to see the bushes full of fireflies.

For our final full day in Faenza we enjoyed a typical Italian lifestyle, we had morning coffee in the square, cycled to a pizza restaurant and had a drink in a bar before heading to Caroline’s exhibition opening evening. The exhibition is titled “Faenza in pieces” and Caroline’s ceramic artwork depicts areas of the town. Despite the rain there was a good turn out. We celebrated a successful opening with a final dinner out, Olly managed to squeeze in a couple more culinary experiences including an Italian version of a trifle (zuppa inglese) and some lemoncello.

The following day we headed to Ancona to get the ferry over to Greece. Stopping on the way to admire the fields of sunflowers and a flock of flamingos.

Croatia: Dinara (6/28)

We crossed the Spanish border into southern France. Our route, avoiding the tolls, took us along rural French roads, and through a picturesque mountain pass at Montgenèvre. We stopped at a lake outside of Turin, and relaxed with a cold beer on the shore. That evening, just outside the van, we watched a swarm of fireflies. With the camera tripod out, Anya took some long-exposure shots.

The next day we continued driving towards Croatia, stopping outside Trieste for the night, before carrying on through Slovenia – carefully avoiding the motorways to avoid paying for a vignette. We arrived just outside Zadar, in the late afternoon, luckily bagging the last available spot at the campsite. The campsite had access to the beach, and before dinner we went for a swim where Anya found a sea cucumber, I’d not seen one before.

That evening was quite still, and humid, which meant for a sticky night in the van, but it was made much worse by the invading army of mosquitoes. Much of the night was spent squashing, or attempting to squash, them – bittersweet when you got one full of blood. Despite our attempts we were both savaged that night.

In the morning we visited Zadar, an old, walled, coastal city. Firstly, we’re pretty sure we got ripped off for car parking; paying a man for a ticket in what turned out to be a free car park! We wandered around the city, along the coast to the sea organ – an organ powered by the waves, although due to the randomness of the waves, it doesn’t actually produce a very tuneful sound.

We wound our way back through the narrow streets, and through the old Venetian gate back to the van and set off to Krka National Park.

The national park is known for its spectacular waterfalls. It was very hot when we visited, and the shady trees, large bodies of water, and spray had a lovely cooling effect. We took the 2km circular walk along the footpaths and boardwalks taking in the crashing waterfalls, and the local wildlife, before stopping for a swim beneath the largest of the waterfalls.

There was also a brief, historical section explaining how this location had been used for hydro-power for centuries in the milling of wheat, and production of textiles. More recently it was the location of the world’s second hydro power station.

That evening we headed to the car park for hiking Dinara. We spent the night there to ensure we could get an early start the next morning. Setting of early to try and make the most of cool air, we took the well-marked path towards the peak. The path ascended consistently but not too steeply across the green, karst landscape. Spying a Croatian flag flying at the summit, we headed for it, arriving just before midday. We met a Croatian at the top – the only other person we saw all day. For some reason, which we never ascertained, he’d bought the large Croatian flag with him. He took our summit photo for us – next to the flag – with our much smaller version, before setting off back down the hill with his flag. The circular route we’d taken took us back down a slightly different way, but along much rougher ground before joining back with the main path.

The next morning we went to see the source of the Cetina river, which was located nearby. It resurges from the limestone landscape into a crystal clear pool, with lovely shades of blues and greens.

Our original plan had been to tackle Triglav in Slovenia, next. However the mountain hut was still closed as the winter’s snow had yet to melt, and was level with the roof. So we decided to postpone that and instead headed for Pula.

Pula was another interesting & picturesque coastal town. Previously a territory of the Roman Empire, it features a large amphitheatre — apparently the best preserved outside of Italy. We wandered round the town, stopping in the square for some refreshments, and had a brief walk round the castle.

The next day we paid a visit Baredine show cave, stopping at Rovinj on the way. The cave was very well lit, with iron-oxide stained calcite in the upper levels and pure white lower down. In the final chamber they also had two human fish or olm — skin coloured, amphibious, cave-dwelling creatures only found in the caves around Croatia & Slovenia. According to our guide, they actually reside lower in the cave, but they capture two of them every 50 days and bring them up to this chamber for public viewing.

From Croatia we set off for Faenza, Italy; to meet up with Mum who’s spending the summer there. We stopped outside of Trieste, again, on the way back. Stopping in a different car park, we discovered that there was climbing right next to us. We chatted to some climbers there and blagged a photo of the guidebook. The next morning we climbed a few routes, which were very polished – making it a little tricky in a few places.

Spain: Mulhacén (5/28)

After spending the night on top of the Portuguese peak we decided to do the drive to the Spanish peak in one day. Partly to save time and partly because sleeping at altitude is a lot cooler.

We had some culinary adventures in Portugal, Olly had accidentally purchased ‘nabisca’ which translated to turnip greens. This looks deceptively like spinach but tastes like eating your mum's garden plants. We also bought (on purpose) what translated to ‘japanese aubergines’. These are purpler longer aubergines which having a higher skin to flesh ratio compared to normal aubergines were delicious.

The drive between peaks was 9.5 hours, the last 1.5 hours of which was a series of hairpin turns up the mountain through a series of small villages clinging to the mountainside. We even had to stop at one point to navigate around a parade complete with brass band and daytime fireworks.

After the last village the narrow tarmac road became a gravel track and our van got a real shake down. Luckily we only lost one piece of cladding which was loose anyway. We settled in for the night ready for peak day.

After an early start we headed up through the pine forest towards the peak. We were following a description and GPS track we found online which made a loop walk. There was a pleasant incline for the most part and we made it to the top (3479m) in just under 4 hours. This was a similar ascent gain to Ben Nevis but just at a higher altitude. (NB Olly is standing on a higher rock in our summit photo, I'm not that small).

We spotted a heard of chamois (high altitude goats) and were being careful not to scare them, as they seemed shy. That was until we saw one at the summit eating discarded banana skins and orange peel unbothered by our presence.

We ate our sandwiches took some photos and headed down the other side of the peak on some steep scree zigzags. We soon lost some altitude and then followed a gentle track, traversing around, meeting a junction we‘d passed on the way up. We decided to complete the loop, this might have been a mistake as it was now very hot and the second half of the loop back to the car seemed a lot longer. We actually walked 28km (17.4 miles) in total.

Back at the van we had bucket showers and some celebratory warm french rosé before having an early night. We had been having a problem of flies coming into the van. Every evening we had to spend 10 minutes shoeing the flies out of the side window before going to sleep. Olly had attempted to make fly traps with duck tape but the flies weren't interested and we decided to remove them before I got my hair stuck in one.

The next morning we made our way back down the steep road stopping for some breakfast in the first town. The restaurant owner didn’t speak English but we managed to use Google Translate to ask for “breakfast” which turned out to be toasted bread with tomatoes and cured ham which was very tasty.

Our next stop was Xàtiva, a small town on the outskirts of Valencia which had some climbing nearby. Valencia is famous as being the home of paella, we decided this should be out first meal out of the trip and scoured the internet for a good restaurant. We arrived in the town and headed to our carefully selected restaurant, unfortunately it was closed on a Tuesday. As were, as far as we could tell, all the other restaurants selling paella. This left us with the only option of buying cold paella off the deli counter in the supermarket. Luckily it turned out to be very tasty.

Being inland in Southern Spain was very warm and we had a sweaty night’s sleep as the van isn’t designed for conducting away body heat. Undeterred in the morning we headed to the climbing location and started on the easiest route. A 4a called El Rio, this was considerably harder than I was expecting and was made more difficult by the 30 degree blazing sunshine. We then hid in the woods for a couple of hours until the wall came into shade and managed one more route Es Carlota (5a) which was also hard.

We then decided to get a few miles under our belts towards our next destination Barcelona. We stopped half way at a little seaside resort town, without the tourists. I’m not sure when tourist season starts, but early June is very quiet. It was very windy and we decided to hide in the van rather than be sand blasted on a walk along the beach.

Olly had initially been against the cool box but on having his first van cooled beer he decided that it was actually a good idea. Similarly I had been against bringing the whole 130 piece socket set with us, but having needed to use an obscure socket to tighten the handle of our frying pan, it has now been justified.

Our next stop was Barcelona, instead of stressfully driving into he city centre where there is limited parking and lots of horror stories about van break ins we decided to stop at an actual campsite.

This meant we could bus into town, but also refill our water and have our first hot showers in 10 days!

We did the usual tourist things, mainly walking around the city looking at the Antoni Gaudi architecture. Unfortunately tickets to go inside La Sagrada Familia were sold out so instead we sat on some benches and watched the cranes lift bits of masonry. The large unfinished Catholic church is set to be finished in 2032 but was started in 1882.

Whilst in Barcelona we met up with one of Olly’s old work colleagues and had a pleasant evening eating tapas and catching up over a few beers.

Our campsite crib sheet had said the last bus was at 10pm but by consulting Google we worked out we could get two buses and leave at 11.30. This was all going to plan until at the university hospital where we had to change buses we read the bus timetable and the bus Google suggested appeared not to exist. The bus time came and went with no bus. So Olly decided to install the Barcelona version of Uber on his phone. No one accepted our ride request on this app or another he installed.

So we had a few options; a 3.5 hour walk, wait until the next bus at 6am or go into the hospital and hope they had a number for a local taxi. We went for option 3 and were pleasantly surprised the the taxi we rang with our limited Spanish vocabulary arrived just 30 seconds later.

Safely back at the campsite we turned in and just about managed to leave the following morning before kicking out time.

We then started the long drive to Croatia, I don’t think I have ever had a route on my Google maps which the duration time has been in days before.

As we neared the French border we spotted a very scantily clad hitch hiker in a very small bikini and high heels. A little further on there was another and another and we realised they were prostitutes. I was surprised as I wouldn’t have expected them to be so blatantly selling their wares at midday on the main road.

After doing some googling we worked out that prostitution is legal in Catalan but not in neighbouring France, hence in addition to the cheap cigarettes, alcohol and fuel people are crossing the border to use the brothels. There is some controversy surrounding local brothel's as although prostitution is legal the brothels have been linked to human trafficking.

We continued our journey east in the direction of Croatia.