It was time to leave Romania and head to our next country, Bulgaria. We walked to the bus station and waited for the bus that would take us across the border to Vidin. There was a strange man sitting across from us on the bus who kept talking video calls with no head phones. He would make his video screen big and the other persons small so he could look at himself instead of them, which we found funny. When it was time to get off he threw all of his Romanian money on the ground and threw a fit. It was great people watching. After that we walked to the nearby taxi stand and drove about 1 hour to our final destination of Belogradchik.

The drive was beautiful with the sunset and the driver shared a cigarette with Nick. The driver was funny. He had a CD in but did not like any song and kept skipping the music all the time until it was exactly what he wanted. Every song we listened to probably took at least 3-5 skips to find. It was dark as we drove along the road coming into Belogradchik from higher up. The view of the town and the fortress all lit up were gorgeous. Unfortunately there wasn’t a good place to pull over for pictures. We checked in to our apartment and got some rest after a long travel day.

The main thing to do in Belogradchik is visit the Fortress. It was an easy walk from town. The best view that is most popular for photographs was unfortunately blocked by seating. There was a large temporary stand set up as they were going to hold an outdoor opera there in a few days. It was too bad we were going to miss that, because our friend from Bulgaria said it is a nice event. The fort had stone walls, and many of the sections were nestled in between big rocks. It was still beautiful even though the best view was blocked. There were informational signs, and some hiking trails around as well. From the top of the fortress we got to see views of the forests and rock formations on one side and the town with all the red roofs on the other.