Blogs from Sofia, Sofia City , Bulgaria, Europe - page 8

Total Distance Cycled: 854km over 9 cycling days The forecast for Tuesday and the rest of the week was suppose to be nice, but overnight and into the morning there was no sign of that. I'm not sure if we had even seen the sun since a week ago Sunday. We took our time until there was some confirmation that the weather was starting to break. It finally did, and we were off by 9:30! We found a side road for the first 25km that avoided the main highway that had driven Shauna bit nuts the other day. The road was VERY quiet, but the it reflected that, as in places it wasn't in great shape. We did get a chance to go through some small villages, though, and it was certainly a better experience than ... read more

Well I have finally started my travels, and first stop is Sofia, Bulgaria. A country I know little about, and whose language completely escapes me. I feel somewhat disabled by this and struggle not start speaking Spanish as my brain only knows two languages; English and Foreign. We arrived today at noon, Nikesh my travelling buddy who I met for the first time at Gatwick this morning, but had planned to travel to the IFMSA conference together via email. Luckily we get on! We were welcomed to Sofia with sunshine and blue skies, and given a glimpse into the Iron belt. It feels very European here with some very attractive architecture, but at the same time you can't ignore the Soviet style concrete flat blocks, and the obvious notes of poverty. It is a very small ... read more

I took another lazy day today. I woke up to a bit of thunder, and was not at all motivated to move. Also, I could hear the street dogs barking all last night and wasn't too keen on meeting them in person. So instead, I decided to take today to upload a bunch of photos, organize some travel stuff, and just relax. Oh, and I had no local currency yet, and I didn’t really feel like roaming the streets of Sofia by myself. Sketch. When I went down for supper though, the restaurant was closed. Crap. Looks like I’ll be venturing out today after all haha. Reception was super helpful and nice, telling me how to first find an ATM. (Minor detail) And off I went. It wasn’t too far, about a 15min walk down the ... read more

6/23/09 Lily: Over the last four days, we have been in Pamporovoro and Sofia, Bulgaria. Pamporovoro is up in the mountains. We stayed at two different apartments. We did lots of hiking in the mountains. The views are small until you get up high, but when you are high up, the views are great. --- Sofia is the capital of Bulgaria. There is lots of architecture in Sofia is European. I enjoyed the fancy shapes in the architecture a lot. --- We have repeatedly tried to find book stores, yet we have failed to find book stores for English speaking kids. We hope for better luck in Hungary. --- On our last day in Bulgaria, we went to the train station to take a train to Hungary, yet we were told that we could not go ... read more

After Boarding the Train for Sofia we were in for another surprise; the cabin (which we wondered the last time how it ever fitted two people) ended up being for 6 people this time around... a real space saver! Thankfully we had to share the cabin with only two others. Lizzy and Cos from the UK who had just finished University and were Inter-railing Europe for a few weeks as a treat. We also met Max who was travelling up from Syria after spending 5 months there learning Arabic. He was heading to Italy to meet his parents who have a house there. He's in college in Saint Andrews where the Royals normally go. All seemed well-to-do and had travelled extensively for their young ages of 21-22. It was nice to spend some time talking to ... read more