The young couple emerge a short time later and, after the obligatory photo groupings, manoeuvres that seem to be ritual clones from Gabrovo to Glasgow, Vienna to Vancouver, they are whisked away in a black, beribboned Landcruiser.

Next to the Registry Office there is a small, modern shopping mall which seems to have corralled the local mosque somewhere in its depths, only the minaret pointing to the sky reveals its presence. It is one of the oldest in town. Half a block away we pass Cinema Paradiso and, after a short walk around the centre, we have to go back, the day is wearing on and we have another half an hour’s drive before we reach the EVN holiday hotel were we are to spend the night.

This is now the third day with very limited internet access, which means our questions are piling up in my little scribbling pads… What happened to all the Jews after the war? What are the demographic details as to religion and how does this vary regionally? What does Orpheus really stand for? These will all have to wait. Perhaps the next generation of guide books will be downloaded from the web onto your general purpose personal communicator as you need them: simply feed in where you are (exact location via GPS) and you have access to photographic, demographic, economic, historical etc databanks with information displayed on a high definition screen. No more 2 kilo books. An encyclopaedia available from the ether. All-round education, literally. Context without end…

We arrive at our lodgings for the night to find that we are almost the only people in the building which is a kilometre or so outside the centre of the village of Mineralni Bani. It seems to be in a state of contraction, like so many places we’ve passed. At any rate there are resort hotels in states somewhere between incomplete and falling down as well as a couple of new or newly refurbished ones with swimming pools and mineral baths. We find a pleasant and friendly place to eat and get an early night. These are long days.