Monday, April 23
Beach day! Today we walked around the resort area and went down to the beach. We hung out on the sand for a while and enjoyed the sun and the view. We stuck our feet in the water. It’s still very cold. We enjoyed watching the ships coming in and out of the harbor. Most of the ships appear to be cargo vessels. The petroleum tankers probably go to Burgas.
(The Black Sea)
We had lunch at a local restaurant called, “Happy House”. We ordered greek salad and pizza with an over-easy egg on it. It was an interesting experiment.
When we came back we saw two things that startled us. A large iguana made an appearance near the pool. He has a cage between the bar area and the hot tub. It can get chilly in the evenings so they take him inside after the sun goes down. He’s very friendly. The other piece of news is that the pool is being cleaned out. They’ve even started filling it. It’ll probably be filled by the time we leave.
(The Hotel Iguana – He’s Very Laid Back)
Distance walked: 4.6 miles
Tuesday, April 24
Another trip on the bus into Town. We found a nice coffee shop called, “The Three Dolphins”. They serve coffee made from 100% Arabica beans that is produced in Austria. It was very good.
Afterwards we visited the archeological museum. The museum’s claim to fame is that it contains the earliest known examples of golden objects made by man. They were found in an ancient burial site in the area. The site was accidentally discovered in 1972 and the finds date from around 4,600 BC. They were surprisingly ornate and quite beautiful. Many pieces had intricate filigree work – especially the jewelry. The museum charges 20 leva (around $13.00) for the privilege of taking pictures, so you won’t find any on this site.
We found a recommendation for a Turkish restaurant online and today we decided to try it. It’s called, “The Orient”. We arrived around 11:45 am and the place was empty. The waiter, having nothing better to do, engaged us in conversation. He wanted to know if we’d ever had Turkish food before and asked if we wanted anything special. We said, “Yes, we want Kazandibi”. He never heard of it! We were considering leaving. Kazandibi is a standard Turkish dessert and any restaurant where it was unheard of was, in our eyes, suspect. We decided to take a look at the menus and wound up ordering lamb skewers that came with rice, pickled cabbage and sautéed onions and a falafel plate that came with a bowl of tahini sauce. It was all really delicious. For dessert the waiter tried to make up for our disappointment and recommended the Kanafeh. It was good but no Kazandibi.
(Half Eaten Lamb Skewers. You’re Lucky You Got a Picture At All)
We think we’ve finally figured out the busses here. One nice thing is that you can buy tickets on the bus, which makes things easy and convenient. You don’t even need exact change. There is a person on every bus who sells tickets and will even make change. We found a schedule online that seems to be fairly accurate. It’s worked out better for us than our experiences in Sofia!
Distance walked: 5.1 miles
Thursday, April 26
Another trip into Town. This time we concentrated on buying supplies for the next legs of our journey. We went to the big shopping mall by the bus station and had lunch at an Italian eatery in the food court. We had chicken in turmeric sauce and vegetarian “meatballs” made from spinach and quinoa, which were surprisingly good.
(Chicken in Turmeric Sauce and Spinach “Meatballs”)
Apartments tend to fill up faster in the summer time so we decided to book several cities in advance. Our next stop will be in Budapest, Hungary and we will be there for a month. After that we will be spending a month in Prague, Czech Republic followed by two weeks in Dresden, Germany and two weeks in Warsaw, Poland. We have some ideas of what will come after that but we don’t want to spoil the surprise. 😊
Distance walked: 4.6 miles