Annalise's Adventures in Wonderland: Bulgaria

The further south we have headed, the poorer the areas have become. The more south we go, the more we see abandoned factories, old and falling down houses, more people living on the streets, more beggars, and the more manly the haircuts on the girls.

Old house, Rila Mountains.

We took another overnight train from Bucharest to Sophia. The had originated in Moscow 2 days earlier. All the train staff only spoke Russian and the signs where in the cyrilic alphabet which was a bit confusing. It was my first taste of these letters, but luckily Justin knows the sounds of the letters which helped while we were in Bulgaria.

Saturday in Sophia.

Arriving in Sophia, Bulgaria was a beautiful change. The bus station itself was horribly run down and stinky, but once we left that area it was great. Sophia is amazing place with a huge mix of ancient ruins and new modern city. The central subway station is built over an ancient Roman city, and they are excavating parts of it, which you can see.

Old and new, Sophia.

Bulgaria was also a nice change from being surrounded by smokers. There are smokers here too, but most people smoke outside. And the food is better than other Eastern European countries.

Saturday buskers in Sophia.

We hired a car (it was so cheap!) for a week, and went exploring the countryside. We have been getting tired of big cities and lots of people. We visited a couple of touristy places, including Rile Monastery, Devin and Veliko Tarnovo. The monastery was founded by a hermit in the 10th century and is the most famous Eastern Orthodox monastery in Bulgaria. Devin is famous for its mineral waters and has a massive gorge cutting through the mountains. The Trigrad Gorge is beautiful. It has a very narrow road, sometimes down to one lane, that runs the length of the gorge and has massive rock walls either side of a narrow river way below the road. Veliko Tarnovo is a small town that is famous for its ruined city and castle. It is where some of the Bulgarian Emperors lived. It has some of the oldest history in Europe dating back to 3BC.

Rila Monastery.

Monks Quarters, Rila Monastery.

We also went hiking, which turned into a death march. We had planned to get a chairlift to the top of a hill then hike around the lakes there, but the lift was not working so we decided to walk up (and down) the very steep hill. The views at the tops were beautiful but our knees were very sore the next day. The best part of the hike was that a very friendly dog followed us all the way up the hill.