Blogs from Veliko Tarnovo, Veliko Tarnovo Province, Bulgaria, Europe

Sunday 8th July 2012 We're off again! After an early breakfast we took the second taxi of this trip to the bus station where we boarded the 0800 bus to Veliko Tarnovo. The main attraction for this town is a castle and the Old Town area and the helpful tourist information office in Ruse said this was not to be missed. Two hours later we arrived at the VT bus station and after retrieving our baggage we turned to see the only taxi there driving off. Undeterred ,we set off in the direction of town, intending to wave a taxi down when we saw one. Luckily one came before we had walked too far, we were walking in the opposite direction! The Arena Tarnovo Hotel advertises itself as being close to the centre of town. It ... read more

Early on Tuesday we board the same train that we arrived on two days ago, completing its run to Bucharest. Just 100 miles and it takes three hours … and this is an express! We have a quick change to make in Bucharest but are thrown by the station board saying our next train is heading for Sofia not Istanbul. We discover that we are once again on a train that splits, half will go west and half south. We now have a routine for long distance train travel. We stock up on snacks and water – restaurant cars are not to be relied on and the dreadful breakfast on Romanian railways has put us off for a long while. If it is an overnight trip, wine is essential for the evening. Once establishing ourselves, out ... read more

Mostar has a beautiful old town, mostly rebuilt since the war of '93. The world famous bridge, originally built in the 16th century, was rebuilt in 2004 after being demolished by the Croats. As for the rest of the town, it is decently habitable, but depressing as hell. The first thing you will notice is all of the bombed out buildings, especially on the Bulevar stretch, which acted as the main front during the war. I just stayed one night there at Magdelena-Lena hostel, run by Lena, a born and bread Bosnian and the sweetest woman in the world. As for the rest of the Bosnians, they are a pretty damn grumpy people. I've decided I'll let them off the hook for thirty post-war years, but by 2024 they better have shaped up. The woman running ... read more

SO... we have come to the end of our volunteering in the Street Centre, it was so sad saying bye to the kids yesterday and the owner of the centre was so nice. On our last day we did face painting, followed by making a huge collage of lots of pictures that we printed (space themed). We also had water fights, drawing, football and fun, I will definitely remember this place, for the experience and the people. What I found difficult was that we didn't know any of their backgrounds= like why they were there, where their parents were, what their past was like, I had a bit of an insight into a few of them when a Bulgarian/English speaking Polish girl arrived this week and she told us what she had found out from the ... read more

Sorry it is been a while since the last update and we have had a few adventures. Firstly we went to Bucharest which is really dull. The second largest building in the world is there and worth missing. Also we had a typical travel inccident! I will let Scott tell you the story (please dont laugh at him too much!)... .......Scott is to embarrased. Some guy, an egyptian asked if they use euros here. Scott explained about the Leve and gets his wallet out to show a few notes. At that the guy grabs hold of the money "to look at it"- I step in a take it off him. Then a random guy comes up and starts distracting us. Later we looked in the wallet and are missing 6 x 50 lev notes (about £70). ... read more

Veliko Tarnovo After the festival in Bourgas, we were just about recovered enough the next morning to dawdle down to the train station and head on to Veliko Tarnovo (the medieval capital of Bulgaria). The idea of our next destination was some mountain based recuperation. The journey we took required one change, and we were rather dubious as to whether we would know when due to most signs being in cyrillic. Anyway, we did succeed in our change, which was in the middle of nowhere!! So basically, we were standing on a platform in the middle of Bulgaria, just waiting for a train to appear on the horizon. Nevertheless, we weren't alone - Veliko Tarnovo is a popular stop off on the backpacker trail so there were lots of other bemused foreigners with us. While we ... read more

Hi Everyone! First off let me say that Anne and I are well. We have moved into our new home, and found that our builder is not a builder, and the people he deployed to build our house were unskilled laborors (well, most of them - I think we had one master carpenter, but that's all that I can recognize. The builder has not provided any proof of any skilled workers). Every room has issues, and almost every installed component has been completed poorly. Anne and I will be performing recovery actions for at least the next year. Many of you know this already, so apologies for the duplicated message, but below are some links to a web album and a blog on the troubles. This is what Anne and I have been consumed with over ... read more

Veliko Tarnovo day 13-14 (June 19-20) A fairly long and hot train ride to our next destination. The border crossing again was fairly painless, just a bit time consuming and always hotter when the train is not moving. I was glad when our leader sourced some cold water for us at a rather long train stop. I had a brief conversation with an older man who got into the cabin I was stretched out in. He asked where I was from. I asked if he was from here. He indicated that this was a big crossroads, and that the announcements that we could hear were about our train but I couldn’t work out what they meant. Eventually we moved on and arrived at Veliko Tarnovo which had previously been the capital of Bulgaria some time ago. ... read more