Serendipity Saves the Day in Bulgaria
It was simply too hot in Plovdiv. Forget about walking around — even just standing in the afternoon sun in Bulgaria's second-largest city was enough to make you sweat buckets. And in the shade? Well, it didn't really offer any relief. Nowhere to hide. After surviving a 3-hour walking tour of the city the day before (during which I whined quite a bit and legitimately almost passed out twice because I was so overheated and dehydrated), I informed my tour mates that by no circumstances was I going to be doing any sightseeing on our last day in Bulgaria. “I'm going swimming,” I told them. Never mind that I had no idea where one could swim in Plovdiv. I just knew that I needed a break from the oppressive heat of the Eastern European summer — and I wanted that break to take place in a nice pool. Cool. But not a pool. After doing some quick Google searches and consulting my In Your Pocket guide for the city, I discovered that the Sankt Peterburg hotel had an ...