Blogs from Bulgaria, Europe - page 53

Bulgaria or bust! Europe » Bulgaria » Sophia By TheKeithsMarch 26th 2007Alana and Bryan Keithurl='/Videos/2978.html' onclick='dialog("/Videos/2978.html?popped=1","tbvideo",600,600);return false;'Downtown Bulgariaurl='/Videos/2982.html' onclick='dialog("/Videos/2982.html?popped=1","tbvideo",600,600);return false;'Changing of the GuardsBulgaria -- great food, beautiful churches, awesome skiing, good prices. What more can you ask for? We loved Sofia, but skiing on fresh snow at Mount Vitosha was the real highlight of Bulgaria. ... read more

Thursday March 8. Last night I accessed my e-mails. I had e-mails from Alison, Peter and Tony. I replied and Peter replied again almost immediately. It is still amazing for me this internet. As so usual it is difficult to get out of these cities on a bike with the roads built for cars and of motorway standard. At the start of the E80 I asked a police officer for route 8 which runs next to the motorway but he insisted that it was better to use the hard shoulder of the motorway so with some trepidation I did. Not surprisingly I made good progress but at Novi Sad I decided to go on to route 8 - a mistake. For 20 kms I tried to ride on this potholed road which made riding all but ... read more

Finally the day arrived! The most anticipated trip of all! We were all really excited about going snowbording, we had been preparing ourselves for a few months now. Arriving in Sofia we had a driver waiting to take us to Bansko. The ride was rough, long and we really started to wonder if we were going the right direction - we finally got there at ten in the evening. Everyday it was a really early start mainly because we couldn't hold the boys in the chalet for very long. We rented our equipment and up we went to the slopes, that's when we actually realized what we were getting ourselves into and the fact that except for Ant none of us had ever snowboarded. Jana ski's evey winter but she thought that as everyone was ... read more

It was great to see the country from the perspective of an insider- my girlfriend was born and spent her childhood in Bulgaria. I was exicited about my first visit to an ex-communist country and I must say that the 'cardboard' looking cars didn't dissapoint me. Neither did the centre of Sophia... better not to talk about the suburbia though, like any other city really. My heart stays with Plodiv though, after a 2-hours-trip by coach from Sophia (it felt longer), we got to this beautiful - quaint city with loads of Roman legacy - the views from the anphitheatre are amazing. My girlfriend's relatives presented us with a feasty variety of sweets and drinks (the ayran is very popular). Another trip by coach and we were in Nesseber (after passing by Benidorm-tacky-looking sea resorts and ... read more

The overpowering odor of BO smacked me in the face after leaving Istanbul. Lucky to have the bus seat to myself, a tiny girl watched me for a while before visiting my seat to scribble in my journal. We stopped at the Turkish-Bulgarian border and waited to pass out of Turkey. On the Bulgarian border, there were five identical duty free shops. The people on the bus raced for the shops: it wasn't shopping; it was BUYING. I walked into one shop and a man from my bus demanded my passport. He handed it to the clerk, where they recorded the number, and the man ordered 9 cartons of cigarettes. Nine CARTONS! Why would they want my passport in a duty free store? Because there is a QUOTA per person when buying cigarettes and alcohol. ... read more