Blogs from Blagoevgrad Province, Bulgaria, Europe

RETURN TO BULGARIA When I got off the bus in Thessaloniki I needed an internet connection to contact the host of my Airbnb. I wandered around trying to discover a way to do this. I saw an ad for a computer café on the wall in the terminal, but it turned out to be defunct. Then I met Abdul. He was from Tunisia and spoke English, Turkish and French. He was trying to get to France. He had obtained temporary papers from the Greek police, and had thirty days to find a place to live and a job, and fill out a form for a work visa. Abdul asked what I needed and I explained. He told me where there was open Wi-Fi. We chatted awhile. Then Abdul helped me carry my luggage to a taxi ... read more

HE SAID... Today we were travelling north from Bansko to Gorno Draglishte. Having spent the morning trekking in the mist-covered Pirin Mountains, we returned to our hotel in Bansko, checked out in the mid-afternoon and travelled a short distance by minibus to our homestay in the tiny village of Gorno Draglishte. When we pulled up outside our guesthouse, the dining room and courtyard area was full of people. This was our host family’s home, and people had gathered for a christening. We grabbed our room key, found our room (after navigating a maze of stairs, hallways and doors), dropped our packs and headed out for a brief orientation walk through the village. The place was tiny, and we were the only tourists, so everyone knew who we were. The village only had a couple of streets, ... read more

Bulgaria day 6: A whistlestop tour with bears Neve let it be said that we are not adaptable....or we change our minds....you decide... Last night we left it too late to go to bed early for the 4am start we had planned so this morning we, wait for it, had a lie in! No alarms at all! Well we did climb a mountain yesterday so come on, give us a bit of leeway. The plan for today had been to go to a bear park and take a trip on the narrow gauge railway. Both could be close (depending on what station we board at) to each other but both are over a two hour drive. We looked at other things to do that didn’t include climbing another mountain and they are all hours away so ... read more

3rd to 7thJune Kromodovo near Melnik, Bulgaria Before we left Greece we stocked up with food (mainly Kalamata olives) and filled up with petrol and headed north towards the Bulgarian border. It’s the first time we have had to stop at a border and show passports. We then had to find somewhere that sold a vignette allowing us to drive on Bulgarian roads. The road is the main artery connecting Romania, Bulgaria and Greece so is used by huge freight lorries which seemed to have parked up haphazardly just past border control. We pulled up behind one lorry at a wooden hut type building that looked like it sold vignettes but on discovering it didn’t, the lorry pulled away catching the roof and edge of the cabin with its trailed and shaking the whole thing with ... read more

UNMIK, the UN Mission in Kosovo, runs these weekend tours to various places in the region. I signed up for the one for Bansko, Bulgaria - a ski resort town. I don't ski, but there is plenty of stuff to do in Bansko anyway. We left Pristina at around 3:50pm by bu s. I tried taking pictures of the beautiful mountains of Kosovo, but it was through the bus window so they're not very good. WEhad no problems on the border to Macedonia. However, on the border to Bulgaria, we wound up having to wait for a very long time to get through. It felt like hours, but I don't really know how long it was. Then it was snowing heavily, so we had to drive really slow. About 18 km away from Bansko, we became ... read more