Hike to a castle ruins, and Ruth's bike is repaired!

It was really foggy again when we woke up Monday morning, and although it's light outside, the fog takes a long time to burn off. We wanted to go for a hike in the hills, but we wanted to see the views that would afford, so we waited until about 10:30am before setting off. 

And even then it was still a bit foggy.

We set off through town to get to the start of the trail we had chosen.

Church on the hill in the fog.

We were walking through the main section of old town when I noticed some bicycles for rent outside a sports shop. I had google searched for a bike repair shop and nothing had come up in this town. But we went into the sports shop to see if they could recommend a bike repair place in the area, and it turned out they have a technician with a fully equipped shop! They said the technician wouldn't be in until after 12 noon, so we said we'd be back later.

Old town. I love these archways.

The old bridge.

There are a whole bunch of marked trails in these hills. Some are used for logging, and others for recreation. We found the start of the one we thought we wanted, that leads up to an old castle ruins.

Those are some perfectly straight trees!

We made it to the castle ruins.

Not much left to see. I did some research later on... this castle was built sometime in the 1200's, but was badly damaged by an earthquake in the 1500's and was never rebuilt.

We poked around a little bit.

Ruth, exploring a little higher up.

Me!

There was too much forest growth and we couldn't get a view from the ruins, so we followed some other trails that led higher. 

We ended up on this logging road.

That led us to this meadow where we had a bit of a view.

You can see how foggy it still was down below.

A church off in the distance.

We sat and had our lunch here.

Another church in the distance.

We continued on to the village of Gabrovo.

Ruth on a big swing.

Scenery along the way.

The skies have cleared nicely by now!

We took a detour to a cave.

But it was all blocked off.

Coming back into town.

We ended up doing 10.3 kms (6.4 miles) and were gone about 3 hours.

We passed by the sports shop again and stopped in to see if the bike technician was there. He was, and he spoke very good English so that made it easier. We went back to Max, and returned with Ruth's bike and explained the problem. Her bike has hydraulic brakes, and they had been working perfectly before the airplane ride to ship them over here. Ever since we arrived in Europe, the front brake wasn't working at all, and the the rear brake wasn't right either.

He said to leave it with him for an hour and he would get it fixed up.

Max had a great overnight spot here!

We went back later to pick up the bike. He said he had to totally drain the braking system and bleed it and install new fluid. There were no leaks, and he couldn't figure out an explanation as to why the problem had occurred to begin with. Total cost including tax was €30 ($43 CAD, $35 USD).

Nice to have that done, and they seem to work perfectly.

With that done, we went and had a drink at the pub.

Ruth, with Max in the background.

Moving on today. We are taking the backroads south to see what adventure we can find!

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Big selection of Nerf Blaster Dart Guns on sale today. Christmas is coming!

And the same thing in Canada...

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