Blogs from Sofia City , Bulgaria, Europe

With no real plans for today we decided on a walking tour of the city. A 10am start allowed us to have a lazy start to the day and still arrive outside the Palace of Justice with time to spare. Kris was our guide today. He is a native of Sofia who studied in Germany and then chose to come back to Sofia to live. Kris had a great knowledge of the city and to be honest by the end of the tour all of the fact and dates that get crammed into the two hours get muddled by the time it comes to writing the blog. Some interesting facts that I can remember. As I mentioned yesterday, Sofia is the 3rd oldest capital city in Europe behind Rome and Athens, it's original name being Surdica. ... read more

Dear Blog Readers, We'd been really looking forward to this trip, our first time visiting Bulgaria! We'd managed to use some Avios points and a free cabin upgrade resulting in business class returns for 55,000 points and £1 which felt like a steal! Flying this way, the holiday starts at the airport after going through business class check-in, fast-track security, and then straight into the lounge. At Terminal 3 there are several OneWorld lounges to choose from even though we were flying with BA - we decided to go to the Cathay Pacific Lounge. The main reason was that it has its own noodle bar so we could have some miso soup and Vietnamese pho before even taking off! Once in the air, we were treated to a meal and the three-and-a-half-hour journey flew by, landing ... read more

Bonjour à tous, Avant de vous parler de ma journée, je voudrais vous faire part d'un constat de comportement entre la Roumanie, surtout de l'est, avec ces 3 jours à circuler en Bulgarie. Ici j'ai retrouvé ''la civilisation'', que ce soit, surtout, au volant et dans les rues. Fini ce climat, ces comportements agressifs de la Roumanie. Fini la mendicité belliqueuse, qui est chia…. à la longue. J'y ai réfléchi, et fait le constat, qui n'est qu'une hypothèse, et ça n'a pas valeur d'étude, c'est qu'ici les gens ont beaucoup plus le type caucasien, voir pas du tout le teint foncé, type rom, j'ose à peine dire basané. Et cette différence, elle est sur une courte distance, 200km, et une concentration de population bien différente, mais que c'est agréable d'évoluer dans cette ambiance. Question, pensez vous ... read more

12th March 2020 Sofia, Bulgaria Bulgaria just keeps getting better and better, and Sofia is beautiful!We have booked our ongoing tickets to Belgrade Serbia, although this time they have asked for our phone number in the event that the border is closed. Mmmm! Our apartment is really central again and we've found the local supermarket and walked to the centre of town.The free walking tour tomorrow will show us everything we need to see, so better wait until then to explore more. 13th March 2020 Sophia Being next to the tram line can be a real advantage. When you are on the first floor right on the tram line, it is not conducive to good sleep when it feels and sounds like the tram is running right through your bedroom every 60 seconds from 6am! Our ... read more

Since the free Sofia walking tour didn't start until 11 am, so that let me have a leisurely morning and saunter up to the meeting point. I was surprised when I turned up at the meeting point, the Palace of Justice, to see so many people. I haven't been on a walking tour with so many people since I did an evening Ghost tour in Krakow. There were three guides at the meeting point and they were offering two different two tours; the normal free walking tour or a Bulgarian Experience tour which was more hands on and you had to pay for. It did sound interesting, apart from the dancing bit, but I decided to stick with the regular tour. I was a bit sadden that they counted the group of people and that they ... read more