Hey guys, since I last talked you you Anna Maria and I have spent some time in Veliko Tarnovo, Sophia, and have made our way back to Skopje for her flight home in the morning.

On Thursday, we checked out of our hotel and went out to do some exploring in Veliko Tarnovo. The highlight of the city, by far, is the medieval Tsvarets Fortress. It took a while to find parking nearby, and a while to climb up to the top of the hill on foot, but the fortress was interesting and the views from the top were great.

After wrapping up at the fortress, it was time to get on the road to the capital city of Sofia – about 3 hours to the west. We saw some more nice scenery along the way and got to Sofia at just about dusk. Upon arrival, we went straight to the tallest building in the city that I had read about online, assuming that it would have an observation deck. When we got there, we found out that there actually was no observation deck and that we couldn’t go to the top at all, which was a bummer. Since we were there, we grabbed some food from the restaurant in the lobby and then took off to go find our motel that Anna Maria had booked the night before.

On Friday morning, we headed into the city center to catch the free walking tour of Sofia, run by the same company that put on the walking tour in Plovdiv. It was another interesting tour and we learned a lot about the city from our guide Dino.

After the tour, we went in checked into the hostel we had booked for night number 2 in Sofia. Friday evening, I had been lucky enough to score a gig at a place called Dada Cultural Bar. On Wednesday, I sent out a message to about 8 places in the city and there were only two that got back to me: one said I was welcome to play acoustic, but that they couldn’t pay, and this place that said that they would pay me. The guy from the first place, Barabar, was really nice so I wound up setting it up that I would do the paying gig at Dada Cultural Bar and if it wasn’t too late that I’d come over afterwards and play some acoustic for Barabar just for fun. Everything worked out according to plan, and I had a great night of music on Friday! A few people from our hostel even came out to show some support, and I definitely appreciated that.

Here are a couple of tunes that Anna Maria got some footage of:

After I wrapped up the show at Dada, we made the 5 minute walk over to Barabar. I think they were surprised that I actually showed up, but happy to see me nonetheless. It was a nice little place where most everyone was hanging out in front of the bar, so the owner had me set up out there and just start to play. Right away, some people were really digging it, and soon I had several co-singers including a gal from England who wasn’t half bad. She wound up looking though my tablet and found quite a few songs she knew, so I was glad to play requests for about an hour and let her and the others do a lot of the singing. One of my favorite things is actually to play guitar and have others do the singing (or at least sing along), so I had a good time with it!

Friday night was fun, but Saturday morning was pretty rough for the both of us. It was a late night and that rakia really takes a toll – especially on Anna Maria -who only drinks about 4-5 times a year 😂 But we eventually got up and moving, and after breakfast we started to come back to life a little. In the early afternoon, we got back on the road to head to Rila Monastery. It is the most famous monastery in the Balkans and was pretty high on Anna Maria’s list of things she wanted to see. It was definitely an impressive sight and we enjoyed walking the grounds and through the church.

After the monastery, it was time to make the 3 hour drive back to Skopje for Anna Maria’s Sunday morning flight back to the USA. Along the way, we encountered some more really great scenery – and also randomly stumbled across a folk dancing festival that was taking place in a village along our route. It looked like quite a happening, so we decided to stop off and check things out. I’m glad we did because we saw some cool dancing from Macedonia and several other countries that were represented at the event. We even met some American cloggers, but unfortunately missed their performance.

The stop at the festival put us a little behind time – I normally don’t like driving after dark because I want to see the scenery. However, it worked out pretty well today because we got to watch the sun set from the road and saw some really cool colors from that, and we only drove in total dark for about a half hour. So not too bad!

Since it was her last night of vacation, Anna Maria decided we should splurge and get a really nice hotel in downtown Skopje. The place is super nice (5 stars) and has two restaurants and a full spa center with a pool, hot tub, sauna, and steam room. It was only about $65/night. I love the prices in the Balkans – you couldn’t touch a place like this in the states for under $200/night I’m sure. We had dinner here, enjoyed the spa for about an hour, and spent the rest of the evening getting her all packed up for the flight in the morning. She even offered to take the hotel’s airport shuttle so I don’t have to get up early and drive her the 30 minutes to the airport. Do I not have the best wife?!?

It’s been a great two weeks with Anna Maria, and I’ll miss her, but the good news is that she’s coming back in 2 weeks to Budapest and we are going to be traveling together for another week – so I’ll be seeing her again soon!

Tomorrow I’m on my own and will be headed back to Pogradec, Albania (where my car accident occurred) to get the rest of the car fixed. While they were able to make it driveable before I left for Skopje, it still needs the new door, new vent glass, and the fender to be painted, so now is going to be the time to get that taken care of. Also in Albania, my pal Andi has big plans to take me out fishing for Koran and to have a village party over the next two nights – so there should be a good story for you guys on my next update.

Talk to you guys again soon!

P.S. In other big news, it is now confirmed that my good buddies Grant and Bingman will be joining me on this adventure in early November in Bucharest! Bingman for 2 weeks and Grant for 5 weeks. I can’t wait to see those fellas and it’s gonna be a blast road tripping with them and playing some tunes with Binger for all the folks here!