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Published: June 20th 2008
Communist monument
Here is the famous communist monument which has fallen on hard times.From Thessaloniki in the North of Greece we took the morning train to capital of Bulgaria, Sophia. We thought that this by taking this train we would be arriving around 1pm however it wasnt to be, a greek lady that was sitting next to us told us that she had caught this train many times and it had never arrived into Sophia anywhere even close to being on time. So at around 4pm after a lot of starting and stopping for no real apparent reason we finally rolled into Sophia. This was the first time either of us had been into an former communist country and neither of us new really what to expect. We new that capitalism had spread very quickly but we were unsure of what it would be like.
Sophia exceeded all our expectations and is a really lovely place full of nice parks and the Bulgarian people were really friendly. The Bulgarian quisine on the other hand is a bit different, we went out for dinner to a traditional Bulgarian restuarant and after much indesicion we amanged to pick our meals. Trionas was really nice however Peter ordered a HUGE pork fillet stuffed with mushrooms, bacon
Communist party headquaters
The building on the right is the old building of the Bulgarian communist party. and cheese. Although this may sound good that was it, the plate had a giant slab of meat and nothing else. By the end of the meal Peter nearly needed a heart bypass and was left feeling full for the rest of the time we were in Bulgaria.
The next day we explored the streets of Sophia and we found it to be a most compelling place. We visited the Communist Party headquarters, the old military headquaters and many other buildings that the hostel told us to get to. At one point we came across a monument to communism, which looked like it had been attacked and was even fenced off. We later found out that just after they built it it started falling down and instead of fix it they just left it to slowly fall down. One interesting thing in Sophia is that some streets have yellow bricks on them forming a web of yellow brick roads, not sure why but they just do! In our tours around the city we became very familiar with Sophias soviet built tram system, is one of the better tram systems we a have used.
After a few days in
Sophia park
This is one of the parks in Sophia Sophia we decided to see a bit more of the country of Bulgaria and we headed off for a nights stay in Plovdiv. After an inital hiccup where we got on the bus heading in the wrong direction, or as we now like to think of it as us going for a quick 20 minute pleasant bus trip through the bulgarian countryside. We made it to our accommodation in a cute little hostel with some of the most welcoming staff that I have ever met. Plovdiv is a great city with an old town that has cobblestone roads and ancient roman theatres and stadiums right in the middle of the town. The town is also in some really beautiful country side and was a great place to hang out.
After our night in Plovodiv we headed back to Sophia to meet up with out night train that will take us on Bucharest.
We got on the train and just outside of Sophia we started heading through some more of the beautiful countryside. With rivers, forests and really nice mountains. Which made us think of how great our time in Bulgaria had been albeit only for a little while
Roman theatre
This is an ancient roman theatre in the Bulgarian town of Plovdiv and was just up the road from our accomodation. but it is definately worth a visit.
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