Lozenets/Vineyard

We’ve spent far too much time lazing about, anyone would think we were on holiday.

I’d like to be more active but it’s just too damn hot and being on the beach is the only place to be other than lying down in an air conditioned room.

I enjoy the beach anyway: reading my kindle, but surreptitiously observing what’s going on around me (people are very naughty here and hide their dogs which they aren’t supposed to bring on the beach),going for a swim and forgetting my flip flops so my feet are half burnt by the time I get to the sea – it’s all good fun.

We even managed to find somewhere decent to eat last night and saw the end of the men’s Wimbledon final. After, we wandered down to our favourite bar and drank vodka and tonics while watching the town lights dance on the sea. Why are we leaving you ask? I’m asking myself that too.

Basically it’s time to start making our way back to Sofia and I quite fancied a stop on the way and indulging in some wine tasting. Around the Plovdiv area, there are numerous vineyards and Bulgarian wine is very good.

I searched google and stumbled upon the Wine & Spa Complex Starosel, an hours drive from Plovdiv and 2 hours from Sofia. The town sounded interesting as it has Neolithic and Thracian sites as well as having been an important town in the uprising against the Turks in the late 1800’s.

I think we might have driven in to Starosel the wrong way as all I saw was a depressingly tumble-down little settlement with a bar and a couple of shops and a few abandoned, crumbling houses. This is fairly typical of the interior of Bulgaria as far as our travels here are concerned. Like much of Europe, anywhere that used to be agricultural and poor has been abandoned by the young people who seek their fortunes in the city and leave the oldies behind. Who will breathe new life into these sad places?

I’ll tell you who – whoever decided to build the Starosel Wine and Spa Complex, that’s who. Like a phoenix rising from the ashes, the SWSC is huge. What probably started off as a winery is now a massive hotel with swimming pools, multiple restaurants, mini golf – even peacocks! All in the middle of nowhere. And it is pulling in the punters. Expecting to have the run of the place as I assumed most people would have headed for the coast, I was amazed (and a bit put out) to find it buzzing with people.

After dumping our luggage in our basic but perfectly comfortable room, we signed up for a wine tasting and tour. (Start as you mean to go on I say.)

As English speakers don’t appear to come here, we were given what looked like burner phones to listen to while the tour guide spoke in Bulgarian to the other people in the group. Luckily, it was only us doing the actual tasting so the guide spoke English and was very helpful and animated. We tried 5 wines, all of them delicious. If I compare this tasting with the tastings we did in South Africa, I’d say the wines were here were just as good but the execution of it in SA was a lot better. (S says the Bulgarian wines are nowhere near as good but it’s my blog so he can keep his opinions to himself).

We have now retired to our room in a rosy glow and await our dinner. It’s a hard life.

Tomorrow we may have to make an effort and go and see some ancient stuff. Slightly concerned as S has read out to me a review where 2 people went with a tour group to see said ancient stuff, got lost and wandered about in a forest for 7 hours. Still, all in a day’s work for us.