Dig down a few feet anwhere in Plovdiv and you're bound to find something. History oozes from every corner of this town. With ruins dating back 7000 years to 5000bc, the area has been continually inhabited, invaded, destroyed, rebuilt, re-invaded and so on since that time. Walking around Plovdiv you can see Roman Ruins, Thracian Ruins (from 5000bc), Churches from the 13th Century through to the 17th Century and Mosques from the Turkish occupation. Highlights of our time in Plovdiv Watching Van Helsing in the Roman Ampitheater at night. Silly film but a fantastic place to watch anything. Climbing one of the seven hills for each sunset. Chatting to locals who haven't had the novelty of tourists spoilt yet. Learning to read the cyrillic alphabet and making random orders from the lunch menu, eg. Mish-Mash - ... read more

After a few days in the bustle of Sophia we headed south to the Rila Monestary. Famed world wide for its beauty and tranquility. The slow journey by bus from Dupnitsa yielded successively more impressive views until we arrived. We wandered around briefly, it is such a beautiful place, why so many police? We couldn't stay too long as we needed to find a camp site. About 1.2km along the only road into the mountains is the Bor Camp site. Again the setting is beautiful, and on a friday evening we were one of about 3 tents, we set the tent in the middle of a meadowy area. Apart from a dog the decided to guard our tent during the night it was peaceful and comfortable. I woke early went to the monestary and wandered around ... read more

Hurray! I'm back on the road again. Sara (my girlfriend) and I had hoped to go to Central America for the summer. But alas due to some bad planning, some bad luck, and changes in the university year dates, we couldn't get reasonably priced tickets. So we decided to go to Bulgaria for a month. Trains from Budapest to Sophia, the capital of Bulgaria, run twice a day and go one of two routes, via Romania, or via Serbia. The Serbian route was cheaper ($90 US return) and quicker acording to the internet (Hungarian Railways) so we took that route. After a long slow journey from Budapest to Belgrade, overnight in the sitting carriage we arrived in Belgrade. Our timetable had also indicated that arriving in the morning would give us a 2 hour stopover and ... read more

I think this has to be the largest concert I've ever attended. In the city park Budapest, there is a large area designed for use as a stage. For the last three years Westel - one of Hungary's mobile telephone providers has paid for a promotional concert in the park. Joe Cocker and Elton John were the previous years stars. This year Sting. Free to attend and promoted like crazy all over Hungary the concert was always going to be busy - but I've never seen anything like it, I'm waiting for statistics but rumours of 400,000 or more people are flying about at the moment, I could believe more. I never even got close enough to the stage to actually physically see the stars with my own eyes. Sara and I only managed to get ... read more

A fourty minute train ride from Prague is Castle Karlstejn. The lonely planet guide mentioned fairy tale, and it lived up to the description. Perching on the top of a hill, looming over a village, with flags rustling in the wind. I've never seen a castle as picturesque, though Warwick Castle England was very impressive. The castle was built in the 14th century, and was home to Charles IV, and his 4 wives. For 200Kc (£4) a tour takes you around most of the castle, unfortunately for us, the Chapel of the Holy Rood is closed to visitors except in July - September. The guided tour around the inhabited part was impressive enough. So things I remember: Being a princess/queen was not all it that it is cut out to be. Lots of child bearing and ... read more