An uphill day in more than one sense. Set out just before 7am - the air refreshingly chilly with vineyards all around.
The first climb began almost immediately - not very steep (about 4%) but long and remorseless. Vineyards gave way to scrub, then to planted forest - mostly Spruce (I think).
The "asphalt" road ran near, and sometimes parallel to, the main motorway to Sofia. Maybe the road, barely more than single track, once served this purpose. It can't have received and maintenance for years. Cracks, fissures & subsidence kept me alert (and uncomfortable).
At about 700m altitude, turned off the road onto a forest track - wildly uneven, dry but mud had turned to slippery dust & sand. Cukoos cukoo'd from the woods. At one point, a perfect line of push-me-pull-you caterpillars advanced across the track.
I tried riding - but could get little traction - and walked the bike about 5km to the top of the hill.
I mounted and gingerly inched my way down, brakes on hard (and squealing in protest). Not gingerly enough. Trying to ride along the steep sort-of-bank down the sort-of-middle of the track, the bike suddenly skidded out from under me - I flew sideways and crashed heavily down onto my shoulder and hip. Ow. I lay dazed for a minute or so - then heaved myself upright. No visible damage - but shoulder and hip kicking up a big big fuss.
I walked the bike about 5km downhill - battling as it sought to veer off & ahead at the slightest excuse . . . .
Nearing the end of the track, just above a village of derelict and semi-derelict homes - an immaculate chapel by the side of the road. In its brightly-muraled interior - heavenly angels sang on a loop.
A little further on, good to get back on asphalt, however pitted. Stopped at a village stall and refuelled with ice-cream and chocolate (I'm consuming a shameful amount of both).
Soon the asphalt snaked upwards again
A total of one & a half thousand metres ascent in the day. More than enough. But the last 20km a blissful gradual downhill.
The accommodation I'd booked near the Iskar Resevoir - Strandzhata's House - turned out to look half-built. No-one seemed to be about. I phoned - a sleepy elderly voice answered briefly - the owner appeared a few minutes later, and showed my up to a room (in the semi-built half of the place) on the third floor (my hip not enjoying the steep stairs and my shoulder all-of-a-sudden finding my pannier intolerably heavy). The old boy and I communicate through gestures. He's keen on his (very loud) television - which I cannot shelter from as it's in the sort-of-common-room, the only room in the place with WiFi . . .