Bulgaria

Once more I went to Eastern Europe with my son who is, in my opinion, the world's best navigator. There is a certain advantage to knowing how to read the Cyrillic alphabet which is used, in fact, was created in Bulgaria. Bulgaria was the country he wanted to visit. I was aimed for Romania.

We flew into Budapest, Hungary and hopped the cheapest flight I've ever taken to Sophia. Our hostel was in a building that had housed some communist party headquarters but had ne grandeur about it. The common area and check-in were downstairs and the dorms upstairs but we had to go up an outside stairs. One day I found  a group of youngsters from Argentina being drilled by their coach for a gymnastics competition so I sat on the steps and watched them. When they were allowed a break, I continued on my way to my room, got a magnet for each of them, and presented them before going back downstairs. Their coach only allowed them a minute to examine them before she put them back to work.

Sophia is not a rich city and certainly not glitzy but I really found myself fascinated by it. What I really wanted to see was Rila Monastery in the mountains south of Sophia and a small tour was arranged by our hostel. Talk about a feast for they eyes!

Rila Monastery

We made our way northeast by minibus to a small mountain town called Veliko Tarnova. We arrived late, well after the buses stopped running and after a good wait, hiked to our hostel. It was a beautiful town of houses clinging to a fairly steep hillside. Behind the hostel was a small neighborhood of simple houses with red tile roofing, courtyards and narrow cobblestone streets. A guide told us this is how the old Bulgarians live and they are very proud. We hiked to Tsarovets Castle on the hill and visited the church which had the most unique paintings of any Orthodox church I've seen. Before leaving, I gave a magnet to a young man who worked at the hostel. I also gave a few to an Australian woman who took them on her journey.

The last town we visited before leaving Bulgaria was Russe, and we only stayed for a few hours. We thought we were catching a bus to Bucharest but missed the connection due to a cutback of services for the holidays. We hiled to the square and talked to a fellow at tourist information who gave us a short agenda. We gave him a magnet before departing. I had really good pizza with corn on it and some absolutely incredible chocolate torte in that city. For that, I would return!