Blogs from Plovdiv, Plovdiv Province, Bulgaria, Europe

Auf geht's nach Bulgarien, diesmal in die zweit größte Stadt dieses Landes, über die man eigentlich nie etwas hört. Aber in diesem kleinen beschaulichen Städtchen gibt's nicht nur einen nagelneuen Flughafen sondern auch das Bulgarien Air Museum. Zwei Gründe also um diesen Fleck dringend mal einen Besuch abzustatten. Ein Versuch mittels englischer Charter Gesellschaften, direkt nach Plovdiv zu fliegen scheiterte am Preis und Verfügbarkeit, auch ein Routing mit Ryanair scheiterte an den ungünstigen Flugzeiten. Somit sollte es mich dann doch wieder nach Sofia führen und dann auf dem Landweg nach Plovdiv. Start war also (wie immer) der Munich International Airport, der an diesem Samstag Vormittag wie ausgestorben wirkte, so wenig Betrieb im Terminal 2 hatte ich seit langem nicht mehr gesehen: Audi im MAC: img=http://lh5.ggpht.com/_vYykZYf-JOg/TUXrBNSbRuI/AAAAAAAAD04/8okoLx... read more

Enjoyed an excellent Bulgarian Merlot 2003 before settling in for a quite night in the village. On the morning of the 27th, pushed on out of the Shiroka Laka valley and continued on twisted, narrow, barely-maintained mountain roads. Surprisingly close to SL, we came to the Parapova ski resort. This looked great in that the forest was dense and evergreen, but not so great in that it was like an outpost of Pomland inserted in the Bulgarian mountains. Pubs, and chip butties. Worth another visit though. Dropped back into Bulgarian villages pretty quickly and then onto the Chepelare district. Spotted a side road to Skalni mostova which took us deep into the mountains and near the peak of a 2000m mountain complete with abandoned/under-utilised mountain resort. Few people around and the air was cold and damp, ... read more

After the basic 30 hour haul we arrived in the Bulgarian capital of Sofia. A city of old European architecture, mosques, synagogues and cathedrals. The day started with feta pastries and strong coffee and ended with a chicken goulash. The autumn weather is kind with sunny skies and daytime temperatures in the 20's. Cyrillic is hard to spontaneously fathom but is a necessary part of getting around. Lacking Cyrillic we bought 4 tickets each for the 2 rooms of the Ethnographical museum not under renovation. Sophia is clearly in transition or has been for the last hundred or so years. Soviet-style apartment blocks are everywhere with new smarter blocks being built with methods which would challenge most OH&S policies. Picked up a Citroen on Thursday morning and headed out of Sofia. As we drove from chique ... read more

So, it was time to part from the mountains - probably appropriate since our pace of travelling and general movement had become extremely slow. Our next destination was not Varna (like every other backpacker) but Plovdiv, Bulgaria's second city. We took the train again, preferring perhaps unwisely legroom over the option of an air-conditioned bus. Arriving at Veliko Tarnovo station (after some expert Bulgarian language attempts to the taxi driver) we were rather bemused as to how to obtain a ticket as the woman was shut firmly behind her screen doing her best to ignore us. Luckily though, the people of Veliko Tarnovo are pretty helpful and a young girl came over and did everything for us which was rather nice of her! Again, this train journey involved a change - but it wasn't remote as ... read more

I can’t believe tomorrow’s my last day here in Plovdiv! Time really flies when you do these volunteer camps, it’s crazy. As much as I’m looking forward to coming home, it’s still sad to think of leaving here. Wednesday pretty much cemented the fact we're all going crazy w/ these kids - everyone of us girl volunteers has been molested by these kids. They're not shy about it either, they grab on. Hard. I dare the next one to try it (they were good yesterday) because they will get their hand smacked, and hard. Oh yes, we've also pretty much all been asked to have sex. "You, me? I want sex", and then he'd like come up to you and try to rub up against you. Isn't that just fantastic? We're all like omg NE!!!! Meanwhile ... read more

So, we met the new bunch of kiddies yesterday - world of difference b/w the two groups. Three of the girls came into our kitchen, introduced themselves and asked if we'd go play football. We had just woken up (it was like, 11am haha), so we told them later. (Even though it was supposed to be our 'day off' we still didn't mind). When we finally went downstairs they all came over and were like shaking hands w/ us and everything haha. Aw, too cute! And then even ask for things - it's no more grabbing glasses or cameras, I love it. I have a couple cute shots of the younger ones wearing my glasses (which turn into sunglasses outside). I played football most of the time we were out - the older ones seem to ... read more

Well we are in our final country and final stop of the trip. We are in a place called Plovdiv, about 3 hours from Sofia where we were yesterday, and where we will be tomorrow for our fight on Monday. Sofia was odd, it didnt seem like a capital city, not helped by the fact we arrived there at 6am. There was little to see, which we knew would be the case. We went to see a cathedral and a crypt which SB probably went on about yesterday. This morning we came here after much fun. We struggled to find the tram in Sofia, and once we did find it we were fined 10 leva each for carrying rucksacks! For the entire trip we've been asking if were okay to carry rucksacks and most places have ... read more