Tag Archives: walk🚶🏻
the dangers of walking
This post is about a 23km walk from Plovdiv to Stamboliyski. I have made a plan to walk to Sofia in ten days. The road is terrible. I was notoriously bad at making decisions, but I had finally made one. In fact I had even bought a ticket. On the 1st of March I would […]
this was, like, totally LAAAAAAME
This post is about a 21km walk from Asenovgrad to Plovdiv. I walk on the service lane of a highway. And then there is a terrible bridge. When I looked at the road to Plovdiv on the map I felt worried: there seemed to be no way but the highway. I hated walking on highways, […]
the blue string
This post is about a 21km walk from a roadside chapel to Asenovgrad. I overeat in a restaurant, and then I walk down a bad road. I woke up a few times during the night. Sometimes it was too hot in my sleeping bags. So I would open them a little. Then again it was […]
Iskra
This post is about a 19km walk from Bryagovo to a roadside chapel. I pass the village of Iskra, which got its name from a partisan in WWII. I said goodbye to my hosts and continued walking southwest. This wasn’t the shortest way to Plovdiv (or to my home to Germany) but I wanted to […]
layered hills
This post is about a 10km walk from the Chapel Of Panteleimon to Bryagovo. The road leads past a stunning mountain scenery. At night the temperatures had dropped down to a few degrees below zero. I had been using both my sleeping bags at once, one wrapped within the other, and I hadn’t felt cold […]
make-out point
This post is about a walk from Mineralni Bani to the Chapel Of Panteleimon. It’s a quiet day, and I pass a Turkish village. The road from Mineralni Bani led through quiet, forested hills. There was hardly any traffic. I would walk for a little bit, then sit down somewhere and listen to the birds […]
lyutenitsa
This post is about a 23km walk from Haskovo to Mineralni Bani. I look at a huge monument of the Virgin Mary, then I take a hot bath. My host Ivan had warned me that his house was undergoing renovation, and so everything was going to be pretty basic. I found it perfectly fine anyway. […]
chosque or murch?
This post is about a 22km walk from Aleksandrovo to Haskovo. I pass through a destitute village and see a church that used to be a mosque. Sometimes it’s difficult to say goodbye, and still you do. The sun was warm and the day was quiet when I bid farewell to my hosts and started […]
all we need is love
This post is about a 24km walk from Harmanli to Aleksandrovo. I stop at the biggest refugee camp in Bulgaria, where people are unhappy. The first thing I saw was the wall of the old Caravanserai of Harmanli. It was all that was left of it. Then I crossed a river where I saw a […]
remembrance
This post is about a 21km walk from Lyubimets to Harmanli. It’s cold and grey, and there are a few reminders of the finitude of existence. I woke up to the sound of rain on a tin roof. Beautiful. I lay there, listening to it, then I drifted back into sleep. I dreamt of snow […]
really a prison
This post is about a 17km walk from Svilengrad to Lyubimets. I cross a historical Turkish bridge and see my first refugee camp. And then I walked. It was a warm day, and I took off my hat and my gloves and opened my jacket. I crossed the historical Old Bridge in the center of […]
no kalimera, no kalispera, and no kalinixta
This post is about a 47km walk from Edirne to Svilengrad. I fail to enter Greece and decide to walk directly into Bulgaria instead. Greece, Hellas, the cradle of Europe. Homer and Alexander, Socrates, Aristotle, and Rotting Christ. It sounded like a promise. I had been pondering over the map for months and years, and […]
mosques and horror
This post is about a 13km walk within Edirne. I visit a bunch of beautiful mosques and see something disturbing. Today was going to be easy. I wanted to walk from the southeastern edge of Edirne to its northwest, to a location that was in the old town and a bit closer to the border. […]
pet cemetery
This post is about a 33km walk from Necatiye to Edirne. I hang out at a gas station, and I see a lot of road kill. When I left the hotel it was totally empty except for an old lady sweeping the floor. I asked her for a bit of hot water to fill my […]
walking east
This post is about a 23km walk from Babaeski to Necatiye. I walk backwards, meet a strange traveler, and get some very good bread. I woke up early, packed my stuff, left the Teachers’ House where I was staying, and walked back east. After about twenty minutes I stopped. I had reached the historic Babaeski […]
“the orient”
This post is about a 25km walk from Lüleburgaz to Babaeski. There’s a cow skull, a ruin, and an orientalist sunset. I hung out with Inanc of the Lüleburgaz Bicycle Academy until it was almost noon, then I got going. The highway was the same as before, only the landscape wasn’t. There seemed to be […]
bikes
This post is about a 17km walk from Büyükkaristiran to Lüleburgaz. It starts out bad, but then I run into a guy who tells me something good. I didn’t feel the cold when I woke up, I felt it when I went about packing my stuff: the sleeping bags, the ground pad, the tent. Everything […]
cough, cough, cancer
This post is about a 35km walk from Corlu to Büyükkaristiran. I come through industrial wastelands that remind me of China at its worst. The first thing I noticed was a security camera next to some trees. Then I saw the fence and the signs that said it was a military area. A few minutes […]
I just can’t shut up
This post is about a 30km walk from Canta to Corlu. It’s a cold day on an industrial highway, and I almost get into trouble. There was industry on my left and industry on my right. Factories that produced concrete, factories that produced windows, factories that produced chocolate. I got so bored that I went […]
sideways
This post is about a 16km walk from Silivri to Canta. It’s a cold day with some snowfall that comes at me sideways. When I left the town of Silivri, the first thing I marvelled at was a row of colorful houses right in its center. Or rather: there were two rows, one on each […]