Blogs from Plovdiv Province, Bulgaria, Europe - page 2

We decided to split the Bucharest - Istanbul journey up a little so we took a night off Bucharest to spend "somewhere" in Bulgaria. On the advice of someone we briefly met this place turned out to be Plovdiv, a small and pretty old town in the south. The drive was long, but made manageable by the good views across Bulgaria. It was much prettier and the roads were much better than we all expected. The Romania-Bulgaria boarder took a while due to the bridge being under repair but a bit of football with the boarder guards made that wait easier. Early start today and now we're off to Turkey. We're expecting this to be the first long wait at a boarder crossing, but who knows :) I'll update you all tonight if I'm not shattered! ... read more

PLOVDIV AND CENTRAL BULGARIA From a pleasant, but unremarkable camp on the banks of Lake Iskar, the road to the east toward Plovdiv improved. So also did the general outlook. Away from the feral looking south west, agriculture looks more productive with broad acre farming across a broad plain showing how well this land can produce. Now that Bulgaria is in the EU, those farmers who have recognised the opportunity are said to be doing very well. When we passed through we saw auto headers and other modern machinery reaping excellent looking yields of wheat while sunflowers decorated alternate paddocks. All this under a hot sun hardening seeds to a high quality. What a different face we saw in Plovdiv. In the south west of Bulgaria people may have all but given up. In Plovdiv the ... read more

20 juillet Je me lève sans cadran ce matin. Il est 9h00AM à Sofia et le dortoir à 6 lits où j'ai dormi s'éveille plus rapidement que moi. La vieille enseignante anglaise qui a dormi sous moi (en dessous de mon lit je veux dire, parce que j'ai dormi au deuxième étage d'un bunk bed) se lève avec un mal de tête qui lui semble pénible. Je l'entend râler dans ses jeans de la veille. Bah. Pas de pitié, elle qui s'est enfilé une bouteille de rouge seule dans le dortoir hier soir. Je prépare donc mon sac, engouffre quelques gaufres, et je part à pieds vers la station de bus principale de Sofia. Bérangère, une parisienne rencontrée au guesthouse, m'accompagne jusque-là. La jeune française quitte Sofia pour se rendre à un petit village de campagne ... read more

As we had hoped the weather had cleared away from yesterday,well at least it was that way at dawn.Within an hour fog had enveloped the valley we looked out on and the mountains in the distance and we had to wait until the rising sun burnt the fog off to get the views we had hoped for of the fresh snow on the mountains. In the meantime we went down for breakfast and attentive as ever 'Boris' took our order for omelettes and coffee.The omelettes were a bit different than what we were used to and had crispy edges as if they had been fried.All the same they were tasty and very filling. Back up on our balcony we watched the village come to life with locals with their horse and carts passing by either with ... read more

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/AAAAAAAAD04/8okoLxgqZSE/s72... read more