Blogs from Veliko Tarnovo Province, Bulgaria, Europe - page 3

Early on Tuesday we board the same train that we arrived on two days ago, completing its run to Bucharest. Just 100 miles and it takes three hours … and this is an express! We have a quick change to make in Bucharest but are thrown by the station board saying our next train is heading for Sofia not Istanbul. We discover that we are once again on a train that splits, half will go west and half south. We now have a routine for long distance train travel. We stock up on snacks and water – restaurant cars are not to be relied on and the dreadful breakfast on Romanian railways has put us off for a long while. If it is an overnight trip, wine is essential for the evening. Once establishing ourselves, out ... read more

Geo: 42.7252, 25.4815A big reason for spending three nights in Veliko Tarnovo was to visit what I considered a must-see attraction - the UFO Monument atop Mount Buzludzha, not on the radar of most tourists passing through here, but I was made aware of it after seeing a few of pictures taken last year by Chami, a guy I met last year in Budva. What exactly is it? Well ... it really has nothing to do with UFOs, it just resembles one. It's actually a monument constructed during the Communist ear and has been abandoned for years.Extremely stoked to see this bizarre dinosaur of the Soviet era, I wasn't exactly sure how I was going to get there, as it's not adequately serviced by public transportation, and though it's supposed to be possible to visit the ... read more

SO... we have come to the end of our volunteering in the Street Centre, it was so sad saying bye to the kids yesterday and the owner of the centre was so nice. On our last day we did face painting, followed by making a huge collage of lots of pictures that we printed (space themed). We also had water fights, drawing, football and fun, I will definitely remember this place, for the experience and the people. What I found difficult was that we didn't know any of their backgrounds= like why they were there, where their parents were, what their past was like, I had a bit of an insight into a few of them when a Bulgarian/English speaking Polish girl arrived this week and she told us what she had found out from the ... read more

Veliko Tarnovo After the festival in Bourgas, we were just about recovered enough the next morning to dawdle down to the train station and head on to Veliko Tarnovo (the medieval capital of Bulgaria). The idea of our next destination was some mountain based recuperation. The journey we took required one change, and we were rather dubious as to whether we would know when due to most signs being in cyrillic. Anyway, we did succeed in our change, which was in the middle of nowhere!! So basically, we were standing on a platform in the middle of Bulgaria, just waiting for a train to appear on the horizon. Nevertheless, we weren't alone - Veliko Tarnovo is a popular stop off on the backpacker trail so there were lots of other bemused foreigners with us. While we ... read more

Veliko Tarnovo day 13-14 (June 19-20) A fairly long and hot train ride to our next destination. The border crossing again was fairly painless, just a bit time consuming and always hotter when the train is not moving. I was glad when our leader sourced some cold water for us at a rather long train stop. I had a brief conversation with an older man who got into the cabin I was stretched out in. He asked where I was from. I asked if he was from here. He indicated that this was a big crossroads, and that the announcements that we could hear were about our train but I couldn’t work out what they meant. Eventually we moved on and arrived at Veliko Tarnovo which had previously been the capital of Bulgaria some time ago. ... read more