Sofia, Bulgaria - our last Balkans stay before we head to Istanbul, Turkey! 23 days ago, we blindly crossed the Adriatric, not knowing what to expect. We found a region less traveled where the past differences continues to influence their hopeful future; where the most serene landscapes are peppered with memories of war and churches of all faiths. We came out knowing a lot more about this area of the world, and are glad to have met all the kind people who safely helped us across their homeland.
Sofia is the capital city of Bulgaria with all the modern services and finds of a large, cosmopolitan city. We could tell there's a significant Turkish and Russian influence in this city. We also hadn't run into too many foreign business people and expatriates for the past 3 weeks until we arrived in Sofia. We had a nice conversation and several Kamenitza beers with a retired Norwegian expatriate who made his residence in Sofia about 5 years ago.
The best part about Sofia? The currency exchange office took our Argentine pesos that nobody else would take!! They also exchanged our Serbian dinar that the other Balkan countries would not touch. It felt like a Christmas bonus.
We spent 2 nights at Hotel Budapest, which is an interesting story in itself. We chose the hotel for its close proximity to the train and bus station. As with most places in the world, neighborhoods around public transit is never the 'best' area of town - including the neighborhood around this hotel. There were abandoned buildings and a lot auto mechanics down this street. However, we read extremely good reviews of this 3 star hotel that people say should be at least 3.5 stars, if not 4! We were also comforted to read that during the day, it's perfectly safe to walk around and the main city center with tourist sights is only a 15 minute walk. So, we took our chances. For $50/night, we totally hit the jackpot! This was one of the best hotels we've stayed at during our entire trip. The service was impeccable, rooms comfortable, and even the restaurant had really good innovative food. Since our primary objective was to find a comfortable place with good wifi to stream the Alabama-Arkansas football game on Saturday night and to finalize many details of our upcoming Istanbul and Jerusalem trips, this was the perfect place to accomplish both.
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| Streaming ESPN GameDay via VPN at Hotel Budapest |
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| "Movie night" in our hotel room, streaming Netflix movies. |
We did manage to get in one day of sightseeing in the rain. We saw lots of churches and old buildings again. Sofia is a beautiful city, but we're afraid we didn't do it justice here with our very limited exposure to the place.
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| City center of Sofia |
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| Rotunda St. George - oldest preserved building in Sofia since 14th c. |
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| Mike in front of the Archeological Museum of Bulgaria |
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| St. Nikolai Russian Church |
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| Enjoying a glass of Bulgarian rosé wine in front of an ancient Turkish barracks discovered buried below ground |
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| One of the largest Eastern Orthodox churches in the world. Alexander Nevsky Cathedral, built as a token of gratitude to the Russians for helping Bulgaria gain independence from the Ottoman Rule. |
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| St. Sofia Church circa 565AD during Byzantine Rule. Eternal flame of the unknown soldiers burn. |
What we REALLY wanted to do, had it not rained for 2 days, was to go up to the Vitosha Mountains National Park and hike around. It's a ski resort during the winter, but summer hikers can still take the gondola up to the ridge for a nice view. Vitosha also has a unique natural formation called the "stone river". The only other significant "stone river" is in the Falklands, so we really wanted to see this huge river made of rocks carved by centuries of weathering. But, the rain forbade us to explore this part of Bulgaria. Awww shucks.
Our culinary adventures were a little more entertaining.
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| Tarator - a Bulgarian cold yogurt soup with cucumbers, walnuts, olive oil, and dill. Very refreshing. Bulgaria is the originator of the art of producing yogurt. As such, it appears in every form, as a soup, cold beverage, dipping sauce, etc. |
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| 'BBQ' pork ribs, Bulgarian style, with yogurt dressing. |
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| We swore we wouldn't try another burger until we returned home to avoid disappointment. But, we got lured by Boom! Burgers and Steaks' reputation of "best burgers in Europe". Verdict? Tasted like home. |
So, we bid Bulgaria goodbye as we board the overnight train to Istanbul.
SOFIA TRAIN STATION (GARE CENTRALE SOFIA) and SOFIA CENTRAL BUS STATION
A few tips for travelers. If you Google the location of the central bus station, it will give you the wrong location. The bus station is actually right next to the train station, which makes it convenient for travelers changing transportation. Options to get to Istanbul from Sofia are by bus or by train. We prefer train travel so we walked over to the train station as soon as our bus arrived in Sofia. There were approximately 15 ticket windows, but none of them were international ticket sales. Of course there are no signs indicating that! After getting in the wrong line several times, we were directed to a totally separate ticketing area for international tickets. That would've been nice to know in advance. The ticket office had a sign, RILA, and the ladies spoke English and were very helpful.
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| Go down this hallway to the far left of the train station to find the RILA international ticket sales office. |
