August 18, 2016 by Rae

Free Plovdiv Walking Tour

I was feeling pretty burnt out by late afternoon yesterday, but really wanted to do the free Plovdiv walking tour straight away from 6PM to 8:30PM as a) it would be cooler than between 11AM and 1:30PM and b) so that my time would be my own on Thursday. I knew about this tour because I did the free tour in Sofia.

My post from yesterday left off just before the tour, but I forgot to mention something. As I headed for the tour, I started to feel a bad headache coming on, a combination of too little sleep and too much heat. There are several pharmacies along the main pedestrian street (Knyaz Alexander) so I decided to try again to find some nurofen (ibuprofen). Every place I’d been to so far had at least some service in English, so I asked the pharmacist if she spoke English and she said no! A little taken aback, I then said, “Nurofen?” and she replied, “Yes! Express?” I figured that had to be the fast acting formula, so I said yes. I examined the box she handed me to make sure it was ibuprofen, which it was. It was about 5CAD for 10 gel tablets, which sounds expensive to me, but I was in pain! I then went to sit by the fountain to scour the informational pamphlet in the box to find the dosage. It was all in Bulgarian, of course, but I could recognise numbers as they are written like ours and also the words “hour” and “day.” So even if I couldn’t understand anything else, I knew I was at the dosage section and that I could take one tablet every six hours, with no more than three tablets per day. So I took one and it worked almost immediately. I was really impressed!

So now, the tour. First off, there is no way I can do justice to everything I heard yesterday. Bulgaria’s history is incredibly long and convoluted and each one of you has a different amount of world history knowledge. I got a lot out of the tour, more than can convey here. I hope you will enjoy the pictures and go do your own research if you want more in depth information. I will say that Plovdiv claims to be the longest continually inhabited city in Europe. That’s contested, but what is not is that Plovdiv is 6,000 years old. I can’t even wrap my brain around that! Plovdiv was built over and around seven hills, but there are only six left, with the seventh one mined for building materials. The city was once known as Philippopolis (city of Phillip) and it is the second largest city in Bulgaria.

Our tour started in front of the municipality building at button plaza. These seats are supposed to represent buttons. Our guide, Lora, admitted that she had yet to have a group that saw buttons out of these things!

We then went to one of Plovdiv’s seven hills to look at some commissioned graffiti. You can see that there are a lot of faces, and these are all important figures of Bulgarian history. I was rather amused that the artist claimed to have been inspired by Mount Rushmore.

Across the street is more commissioned graffiti.

This is Vanga, Bulgaria’s “Nostradamus.” Apparently, a lot of her predictions have come true and recently the news here proclaimed that she foresaw that Barack Obama would be the last US president…

We then headed back down to Knyaz Alexander. This staircase is across Knyaz Alexander from the street my hostel is on. This is a statue of local vagrant Miljo (Mil-yo). He was rather well loved figure in Plovdiv, a little deaf and not right in the head, but very funny. I think it says a lot about the character of the city that he was immortalised in bronze. His knees are shiny because local lore is that if you rub them as you whisper a wish in his ear, your wish will come true!

Interesting spelling. They’ve used the Serbian J for the “y as in yoyo” sound.

Here’s the mosque again. I asked yesterday if anyone could tell what’s unusual about it and why and I didn’t get any guesses. The answer is that the mosque is not round and does not have a dome. This is because it was built on the ruins of a church.

This is a miniature representation of the ancient Roman stadium (not to be confused with the theatre!). It was discovered sometime in the 20th century and excavating the whole thing would have been too costly because of all the construction above it. So only the very end (the rounded bit) is excavated.

Amazing!

We then went into a neighbourhood called The Trap (Kapana). This used to be an area full of shops, way back in ancient times. The buildings were all appropriated by the government during the socialist era and trying to sort out ownership after 1989 and the fall of Communism was such a mess that many of the buildings were left to ruin. Now, efforts are being made to revitalise the neighbourhood since money is being pumped into Plovdiv as it was named European Capital of Culture for 2019. There are two guesses as to how the neighbourhood got its name. One is that it is very easy to get lost in it. The other is that there were so many shops it was impossible to get out without spending money!

We then started to climb UP to the old part of the city.

This is one of two tourist information centres. The building you see on the right is the Ethnographic Museum (more on that later).

Eastern Gate.

This is a “gossip tower,” where ladies would gather to watch what was going on in the streets.

The Ethnographic Museum was highly recommended to us by our guide, but, spoiler, when I went today it was closed because of renovations.

We went to the top of Nebet Hill to watch part of the sunset and to see some of the other hills. On the left here you can see Clock Tower Hill (all the way to the left are the TV satellites and almost in the middle of the picture is the eponymous clock tower). The other hill was considered a wild place full of snakes. To the right of that is another hill with a giant statue on it.

Looking across the Maritza River to “new Plovdiv.” My guide told me not to waste my precious time in Plovdiv going over there.

An interesting hole in the ground. 🙂

We came back down the hill and passed the church of St. Constantine and Elena. We will return here. 🙂

I then completely geeked out when we stopped at the house where famed French poet Lamartine stopped for three days on his way back to France from the Orient. He is one of my favourite poets!

I immediately emailed my mother to share these pictures and this is what she had to say (translated):

“Plovdiv is 2,400KM from Pars, 23 hours by car on highways. Can you imagine the time spent traveling in the olden days? In 1833, we were on boats and horses, on bicycles and some richer countries had trains, never mind all the walking that was done.”

I replied, “We travel fast today, but do we really see anything?”

Right before the ancient Roman theatre, we stopped in front of this statue. I wish I could remember his name. He was a violinist and irreverent comedian who had no fear of speaking out against the socialist regime. He was made to disappear to a labour camp, where he survived 11 days. His statue is meant to represent all those artists and cultural icons lost to this dark period of Bulgaria’s history. I have to say that I am impressed by how Bulgaria does not shy away from the darker side of its history

The ancient Roman theatre at last! This venue is still used for concerts. Our guide says that the acoustics are amazing and you can’t even hear the traffic from the boulevard down below when a show is going on!

I had seen this house from below and was glad to get a closer look at it.

We finished our tour at a church where we learned a bit about the reunification of Bulgaria in the 19th century. More on that later as I went to the reunification history museum today.

From this church, it was a very short walk back down to Knyaz Alexander. I was famished, but also exhausted so I just wanted something quick and maybe an ice cream. Earlier, I’d spotted a donair place across from the sushi restaurant, so I headed there. I ordered a small donair on “Arabic bread” for a mere 2BGN. The cashier asked me if I wanted tomato and I made a motion that everyone I’ve made it to has thus far understood to be, “Give me everything.” My sandwich was really good! Just the right size, with lots of seasoned chicken, fresh veggies, and the right amount of garlic sauce. Yum! I then got a strawberry gelato for the two block walk back to the hostel.

My first few hours in Plovdiv were very positive. I’d read many times that Plovdiv is more tourist friendly than is Sofia and has more to recommend it. I tried to go to both cities with as open a mind as I could, but I have to say that I agree with those critiques… Plovdiv just felt more welcoming. More in my next post!

August 17, 2016 by Rae

Maluk Izvor to Plovdiv

I was really starting to wonder if I was ever going to make it away this week. I really need to do a blog post about the reality of “being able to work from anywhere.” But I managed to wrap up most of my work last night and only had to do a small job this morning. I woke up around 6:30 and, really, I just wanted to go back to sleep, but I had to get up if I wanted to do that job and still be on the road before noon. One good thing about being up that early was that it was my turn to roust the dogs after all the times they’ve woken me up, bwa ha ha.

We got back by 7:30 and then I did the unusual thing of going right to work without having my coffee first. You can’t really sip a drink and transcribe effectively at the same time, but that’s what I did. I was bringing the computer with me and it’s the first thing that needs to be packed into my bag, so I couldn’t get anything else done until the work was sent off.

I was finally done around 9:00 and got to work packing and tidying up the house. I wanted to leave with just my little backpack and my purse, so it was quite an effort to whittle down my things to just what would fit in those two bags. I’ll have a lot of hand laundry to do while I’m on the go and will be glad to see the washing machine on Tuesday!

I knew there were a couple of buses leaving Yablanitsa around 11:00 and that the next ones weren’t till just past 2:00. Max offered to take me into Yablanitsa, so I asked him to leave around 10:30 and he obliged. We got into “Yab” as a bus was pulling away. The direction it was going, Max thought it might be going to Sofia. I bolted out of the car and a lady on the sidewalk yelled to me, “To Sofia?!” and I replied yes. She flagged the bus down for me. WOW. So that got me on the road to Sofia at 10:45.

We took a different route in than I’m used to and it was slower even if we had the same number of stops. So we didn’t get to Sofia until 12:15. I had a look at the electronic board and saw that there was a Vitosha company bus to Plovdiv leaving at 12:30 from sector six. Talk about good timing! I used the bathroom and then went to look for the Vitosha kiosk so I could buy my ticket. As it turned out, it was the first one as I came out of the bathroom. Easy! But only because I could read Cyrillic. Otherwise, I’d probably still be in Sofia… My ticket was 14BGN. I grabbed a croissant for a snack and headed for the bus.

There, a man looked at my ticket and mumbled something as he pointed to my croissant. I think he was telling me no food on the bus. I couldn’t get him to say anything clearer and I knew I had a few minutes, so I hurriedly ate it and then he let me on…

The ride to Plovdiv was surprising. I expected a lot of “civilisation’ between the two cities, but no. How can there be so much space in such a small country?!

We pulled into Plovdiv at 2:30, so the ride was exactly four hours door-to-door from home, as I’d been told it would be. By car, though, Plovdiv is only two hours away.

It was only 1.5KM to my hostel from the bus station, and most of that was through a park, so I decided to walk. My phone did a good job of getting me there.

I passed Plovidiv’s “Singing Fountains.” Not quite as impressive as those at the Bellagio, but the air coming off the water was wonderfully cool. Keep reading for visual proof of how hot it was…

I made it to the hostel I’d booked at for a mere 15CAD per night. The reviews for it were mixed, but most agreed that the bathroom was unacceptable. They didn’t have any payment information for me, so I decided to check it out and if it was bad, I’d go to the next one on my list, for 22CAD per night (both prices for a private room with a shared bath). Well, the first hostel was gross, so I went around the corner to the next one, which was brand new. Worth the extra 20CAD!

Here is the outside. From what I’ve read about European “guest houses” or hostels, this is fairly typical in that the hostel is just one floor of the building. I wasn’t sure I was at the right place and the gentleman in the white shirt that you can just barely see asked me, “Hotel?” and when I said yes, he pointed upwards.

The entrance was rather off-putting! When I came in tonight, it was pitch dark and I had to use my iPhone flashlight!

At the end of the corridor, you turn right to get to these stairs:

And then, you follow the instructions on the steps. They amused me! Read the steps from the bottom of the photos up.

So the top step in this photo says, “Keep…”

And that continues with, “Walking. You are are awesome.” LOL

After three flights, I finally got the first sign telling me that I was, indeed at the right place!

There was a fresh paint job here.

This is what greeted me at the top of the building (fourth floor). Reception area ahead of me, bathrooms to the left, my room (I would soon learn) to the right.

Kitchen to the right of the entrance (behind my room). I really appreciate the cold water!

Ladies Italian-style shower room. I was surprised that the vanity and toilet barely get wet after a shower. The hostel provided shower shoes! I had my own, but I do use them outside, so theirs are preferable since the bottoms aren’t dirty.

My room is marked staff…

It is tiny.

But satisfactorily appointed for my needs. I like the big wardrobe.

The door makes me think of the floors in the new part of C&C’s house!

View from my dormer:

There was a good breeze coming from the window and a fan so the room was not as hot as one would expect.

I wanted to go exploring, but was shocked by how inappropriately dressed I was for the weather — in a tee-shirt and long skirt! My clothes felt so heavy and sticky and I wished I had a light sundress. And then, I remembered I had one! I’d packed my Chrysalis cardi in case of cool weather. It was time to try it out in dress mode! Yes, ladies, I will do a proper post about this item. I’m getting close to being ready for that. 🙂 This is the cardi styled as a “Grecian tunic.”

Can you hear my sigh of relief at getting into something so light and breezy?! It looks pretty cute with my Ipanemas, too!

It was almost four at this point. I scrapped my plans for a late lunch and decided to have an early dinner, then get a snack after my walking tour.

The hostel is right off the main street. Here I am at one end of that near the Roman stadium (not to be confused with the Roman theatre). I will have more details and pictures when I do my post on the walking tour.

The largest mosque in Plovdiv. Can you tell what is so odd about it? If so, can you explain why that is? The palm trees are NOT native to Bulgaria. 🙂

I passed three thermometres that put the temperature at 46C. 115. OMG.

Tunnel under the Roman theatre…

Neat house at the top of the hill (I’ll have a better shot of it in my next post!).

Right outside my hostel… I am going to check it out. 😀

One really annoying thing about the drive to Plovdiv was that every few kilometres, there was a giant billboard announcing the “Happy Grill” restaurant chain’s sushi menu! We passed at least six! So you can imagine what I wanted for my late lunch! There are tons of Happy Grills all over Bulgaria, so I wasn’t surprised when I found one two blocks from my hostel. I got prompt and excellent service in English and asked for a big beer! The sushi menu was interesting (I particularly liked the idea of the Mexican roll featuring cheddar), but promising. I ordered two rolls (one with mango and shrimp, the other more traditional with just raw fish (tuna, salmon, sea bass), seaweed, and rice) for a total of eight pieces and they were really good! Add in the ginger and the soy sauce and this was better sushi than I’ve had in Mexico. I would not hesitate to eat sushi at another Happy Grill. But it wasn’t quite enough and I debated whether to order another roll or dessert. The suggestion that I try the Oreo cheesecake did me in. So I had that with an espresso. 🙂

I went back to the hostel to change into my walking sandals and to double check the start point for the walking tour, which was just past the Happy Grill restaurant. I got there around 5:45, with the tour starting at 6:00.

This is Button Plaza (you’ll learn why tomorrow) and is a very popular meeting place for locals.

Behind it is the municipality building (town hall).

As I waited for our guide, I spotted Atlas on a rooftop.

That’s it for tonight. It’s crazy late!

July 28, 2016 by Rae

A Successful Day Trip to Sofia

Mission Star Trek was a success! 😀

The first thing that needed to happen for today to be a good day was for me to get to bed early enough last night that a 5:30 wakeup call would be reasonable. I’ve been staying up late, often to midnight, since I got here since my clients and friends are online in my late evening, and then getting up between eight and nine (!!!). Well, I was beat yesterday and managed to not only shut the lights at 9:30, but fall asleep before ten. So I woke up without my alarm at 5:30!

The dogs were so confused by this early wake up call that they did something they’ve never done: took a runner. I walked a few minutes without being able to hear them and was rather concerned that I was going to have to wait for them to come home. I called for them and Sausage eventually came. I headed home with him and left the gate open for Mechka. She turned up as I was making their breakfast (which was much more elaborate than mine). So thank goodness! Max told me not to freak out if they run off and that they come home, but what I day this would have been for that to happen!

I hurriedly gulped down some coffee and toast, dressed, double checked the contents of my backpack, and was out the door by 6:25.

I made it as far as just past the restaurant when a gal about my age came to a screeching halt beside me to give me a lift to Yablanitsa! Wow! That was a best case scenario because I’d have a choice of a lot more buses. We were in Yablanitsa by 6:40 and so I had a choice of two buses around seven and another at 7:30, which is the one I expected to be on. I flagged down the first seven o’clock bus. The cost was 6.50BGN.

There was quite a bit of construction and traffic and I’m pretty sure the buses drive only about 75KPH or so (it feels sloooow), so we didn’t get into Sofia until around nine. I was going to get off a couple of blocks before the bus station then realised that it was my only guaranteed bathroom stop before the mall, so I stayed on the bus! My breakfast had been meager, so I grabbed a still warm and flaky cheese croissant on my way out of the bus station.

It was only 1.5KM to “downtown”, so there was no point in taking a taxi. I just walked down boulevard Knyaginya Maria Luiza to the Banya Bashi Mosque, stopping en route to get some more top up cards for my phone.

This is the Lions Bridge. If you squint, you can see a yellow Billa sign on the right. How convenient! I popped in to check it out and decided to do my grocery shopping there on the way home. All I really “needed” that I can’t find in Yablanitsa is more peanut butter!

Before I knew it, there was the mosque!

I took a slight detour to check out the synagogue:

Behind the mosque, I checked the opening hours for the Sofia history museum, and it was 11:00. Dang!

Since I had so much time before the movie, I took my time strolling through the ruins of Serdica. Here I am looking through one of the street-level domes down to the ruins:

In case you missed that in the text, here are remains of an ancient Roman sewer system! WOW.

You can walk all through the ruins. There were placards in places I would have assumed I wasn’t allowed to walk.

I took a closer look at this building in front of the Presidential building and learned that it’s the archeological museum, as well as a former mosque. Unfortunately, they didn’t open until ten. 🙁

I went behind the presidential building to check out the famous frescoes at the Church of St. George Rotunda. No photographs allowed, so you’ll just have to take my word that they were AMAZING. 😀

Relative of my late Bitha? Very suspicious of me!

There are more Roman ruins outside the church.

Then, I just wandered! I grabbed a gelato on Boulevard Vitosha, then walked down Boulevard Aleksandar Stamboliyski towards the Mall of Sofia.

The architecture in this city never fails to stop me dead in my tracks.

Surreal to see signs pointing to Belgrade!

And here I am at the Mall of Sofia. I went in to make sure I could find the cinema and to confirm the showtime of 12:30. There was also one at 11:30, but it wasn’t in IMAX 3D and I decided that if I’d come all this way, I should do the whole experience. There wasn’t much of interest in the mall and it was about 10:45, so I headed out to explore the neighbourhood.

The blocks of flats from the Communist era entranced me! They are all over Sofia, but this was my first time actually seeing them up close.

This is across from the Mall of Sofia and translates to Sofia Technical School.

Here’s a good example of how Bulgarian is often like French, only easier. Ниво sounds like “nee-vo” and means “level.” It sounds exactly like the French word for level, niveau. Only it ends with O rather than one of French’s 50 billion spelling combinations that sound like O but look nothing like it.

This building was rather interesting!

As a new reader to the language, I read everything I come across and when I see something like плюс that looks particularly “alien” I make an extra effort. I laughed when I realised it says… “plus”! The word above means store and it’s one of the first Cyrillic words that I can just “read” rather than sound out.

Not an abandoned building…

I was rather put upon that this kid wearing what appears to be a Mexican sombrero is advertising a pizzeria!

Loved this pink lady!

By 11:30, I was feeling peckish. I didn’t have time for a proper sit down meal, so this sign across from the Mall of Sofia caught my attention, advertising pizza and donairs. I wasn’t in the mood for pizza (!), but Middle Eastern food would be a welcome change of pace!

I scanned the menu and most items were immediately familiar — donairs, shish kabob, fattoush salad, shish taouk, shawarma, and… фалафел! Falafel!!! A “medium sized” sandwich was only 2BGN!

Since I’m not a picky eater, I just motioned for the guy to give me everything when he started to hold up each ingredient. I almost burst out laughing when he put French fries in my falafel! I took it to go and found a planter outside to sit on to have my lunch. It was nowhere near as flavourful or yummy as the falafel I had at the Holmes Grill on Baker Street in London, but the super garlicky sauce gave it ample flavour and I relished every bite! Speaking of relish, it had sweet bread and butter pickles, too, which totally worked!

I photographed more flats after I was done eating.

It was then time to go to the movie. I wrote “12:30” in my notebook and headed back to the mall. At the cinema, the cashier let me muddle through “One, Star Trek, *holds up notebook with the time,* please,” before asking me in perfect English if I needed a pair of 3D glasses. LOL Yes, I did. The ticket was 12BGN and the glasses were 1.50BGN, so about 10CAD total for both. Two reports out of Quebec put a 3D IMAX movie at being between $14 and $18CAD, so I got a good deal! I was amused that the tickets are printed on a dot matrix printer!

Now, get this: I was the only one in the theatre!!! That worked out well since I didn’t like my assigned seat (too close to the screen despite my expressly sitting farther back than I normally do, anticipating this problem), so I was able to move back to a better one.

The movie was good and worth the trek (ha ha, see what I did there?). But the sound wasn’t great and with all the accents I know I’ll need to go back and relisten with English subtitles. I was surprised by how much did I manage to get out of the Bulgarian subs, especially when the aliens were talking their language and there would have been English subs at a US or CAD theatre. I would have just enough time to sound out the words/transliterations for things like captain, beware, Enterprise, Federation, etc. to get enough context to muddle through the plot. It was fun to see all the familiar Trek terms and names transliterated into Cyrillic.

Without going into any spoilers, I have to say that what I took from the movie was how it accurately, in my opinion, expressed the curse/blessing of having the nomad/explorer gene.

It was about 2:40 when I came out of the movie and I really wanted to make the bus to Teteven at four since that would save me a cab fare or, worse case, a 6KM walk, plus I was exhausted. I was a little disconcerted when I exited the theatre and was directed down a rather isolated staircase with no signage. I went down many flights until I saw a door marked “Mall of Sofia” and went through it to emerge on the main cinema level. I was surprised because I hadn’t realised I was sitting that far up!

I hoofed it to the previously scouted Billa, arriving around three. I didn’t get much and was a little (lot) annoyed with my language skills when I got to the cash register and the clerk pantomimed that I should have done “something” with my grapefruit and oranges and that she couldn’t sell them to me. I imagine it’s something along the lines of the City Deli on Isla requesting that you have things weighed first. I apologised and motioned for her to leave them since I didn’t have time to start all over.

It was 3:30 at this point, so I headed straight to the bus station. There, I went to the bakery again and got a ham and cheese croissant for the ride home. What can I say, their croissants are really good! 😀

I double checked the schedule I’d put together for myself and saw that the bus at four terminates at Teteven and should be leaving from gate 30. So I checked the electronic screen and, sure enough, that was the info listed. I scurried over to gate 30 and was one of the last to board. It was the same driver as last time, so I knew I wouldn’t have any issues getting off at the junction 2KM from home.

While I waited for the ticket lady to get to me, I pulled a map up on my phone. I didn’t want to get charged full price to Teteven so I wanted her to be aware I was getting off early. She seemed to understand me quite quickly and said, “Seven. Five to Yablanitsa, two to Malak Izvor.” That was a good deal seeing as I’m told a taxi from Yablanitsa to Malak Izvor is six to eight BGN!

The ride home was sloooow. Around Botevgrad, I understood snippets of a conversation between a woman and the driver and from what ensued guess that she said that her child really needed a bathroom and the driver figured he’d use the time to get fuel. So he pulled into a gas station and what seemed like half the bus got off to pee! The bus was a sauna and I was beyond ready to get home and rather annoyed by this little detour, but it was what it was.

We then detoured to Pravets, got back on the highway, and finally reached the turnoff for Yablanitsa. Holy smokes, it felt like the ride took forever! My phone was dead by this point, so I couldn’t check the time.

No one got off in Yablanitsa. As we approached the Malak Izvor turnoff, the ticket lady caught my eye and shook her head, which is the equivalent of nodding in Bulgaria. She called to the driver to give him a heads up and I heard “bagag” (luggage). I called out that I had none (literally said “no luggage”) and she gave me a big smile even as she did a double take that I’d understood that part of the conversation. Yay for my mother tongue again!

I hopped off the bus and took off at a pretty fast clip. Its only 2KM from the junction to “downtown” Malak Izvor, so really just a stroll. A few cars passed, but I wasn’t intent on getting a lift.

The dogs were super happy to see me when I got in! I quickly changed so I could take them on a short walk and then came in to collapse with a cold beer at 6:30. Dang was it a hot one today!

Max was right that a day trip to Sofia doesn’t make sense if you’re going exploring for the first time, but it was a perfectly sensible thing to do now that I have the lay of the land and was content to just have a couple of to-dos there. The bus fare is only 10CAD roundtrip and with lifts to/from Yablanitsa and/or being able to be picked up/dropped off at the junction cutting on my travel time considerably, it makes for a very reasonable day, no worse than going on a supply run to Moose Jaw.

Today was a Good Day.

July 19, 2016 by Rae

First Weekend in Sofia, Buying Groceries, the Bus Station from Hell, and the Nicest Man in Bulgaria

I knew there aren’t many buses to Teteven so I decided on Monday to aim for the second to last bus of the day, to play it safe. I had to do some serious digging on the bus station website to determine that my options were 12:30 or nearly 5PM. I didn’t want to take the chance of being stranded, so I planned my day to be on the 12:30 bus. My only real priority was going grocery shopping. This meant that when I woke up around 7:30AM desperate to go back to sleep, I didn’t. 🙂

I debated whether to take my suitcase with me or come back to the hotel to check out later and then realised that it was a no brainer. I’d brought the suitcase for the sole purpose of holding my groceries. Moreover, a quick check of the map the hotel provided showed me that there was a road just a block from the hotel that would go straight to the bus station and the grocery stores were at the halfway point. Talk about convenient!

One of my two tour guides had told me where to go for groceries downtown, Billa, and Lidl, so it had just been a matter of figuring out the closest ones, something that is not easy to do with Google Maps since the app is stupid and won’t show you the nearest results, but rather random ones. But I thankfully found the correct locations. The plan was to walk up to them to make sure they would be suitable, then head to Makis on Vitosha Boulevard for breakfast, stopping at the Central Post Office to mail Bast a post card.

The post office stop was… interesting. I walked into a cavernous room with wickets all around it, kind of like at a bank. I was ignored, of course, so I translated the signage at each wicket, trying to find one that would sell stamps. I also Googled how to say stamp in Bulgarian and came up with “marka” as being the most likely candidate. Finally, as I circled the room for the third or fourth time trying to decide who to approach to be told to get lost, a lady directly opposite the entrance motioned for me to come to her. I held up the post card I’d bought the day before and said, “I would like a stamp, please.” She sighed and reached into a desk drawer, pulling out a binder from which she extracted a sheet of stamps. After much sighing and muttering she tore some off, passed them to me, took them back, and then repeated the exercise with another binder. The stamps totaled, I believe, 1.70BGN. I only had a 20BGN note and I got the now common, “OMG, don’t you have change?!” eye roll. She didn’t have a till system, but instead reached into her own purse, pulled out her wallet, and came up with change for me! Wow. I thanked her, went out to the hall, licked the stamps, affixed them to my post card (one being upside down by accident), and dropped the card in the mail box outside. Now, to see if it gets to Virginia!

Needless to say, I was ravenous by this point and was very glad to get to Makis. The English speaking gentleman wasn’t there, but I earned a “Dobre” (the Spanish equivalent of claro, okay or got it) when I said “Bik iskal edno kaputcino c edno sandvich klasiko.” I am making progress! 😀 I didn’t like my Monday sandwich as much as my Sunday one (needed some sauce), but it was still very good!

I then headed to Billa. It’s about as close to a “proper” grocery store as you’ll get in Bulgaria, but very tiny. Like the stores in Yablanitsa and Teteven, it felt very haphazard in its layout. I circled twice before committing to purchases. I wanted to buy things like spices, sauces, and salad dressing to jazz up boring rice or veggies and also cheese and yoghurt since the store in Yablanitsa has been out of them. It wasn’t a very hot day so I wasn’t worried about my dairy going bad on the trip home. I also found some of that thick bacon at Billa! I spent about 66BGN (50CAD) on what amounted to mostly staples and things like shower gel and lotion. I even found (Greek) peanut butter! I was pretty happy with my haul, but decided that since I still had room in my suitcase, I would go check out Lidle, especially since I hadn’t found almond milk.

Lidle felt more like a North American supermarket in terms of the products available, including a lot of Tex-Mex stuff! I didn’t pick up much there, but I did snag some tortellini and what appeared to be pimento cream cheese, something I love but have a hard time finding these (spoiler: it was pimento cream cheese… but spicy!). They didn’t have almond milk either. I only spent about 20BGN there.

Grocery shopping in Bulgaria is delightful since there is food from all over Europe and labels are in a kazillion different languages. The tortellini, for example, were in Italian on the front, but the cooking instructions and ingredients on the back were in Bulgarian, Hungarian, Czech, and Romanian. Romanian is rather mutually intelligible with French, Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish, so I was glad to see it. 😀 Just before the till at Billa, I saw cookies with an English label clearly identifying them as being the Central and Eastern European version of McVitie’s Jaffa Cakes from the UK, but the ingredients on the back of the package were in German, Bulgarian, Czech, Hungarian, and more, with no English. I was glad for the English front since I hadn’t picked up any “treats” and I adore Jaffa Cakes. These were half the cost as the McVitie’s version, so I grabbed two packages (spoiler: they are just as good!).

It’s also interesting to see what other palates like and how they interpret various cuisines. The irony of “Mexican-style cheddar” had me chortling in the aisle. Many foods that are considered luxury imports in North America, like some premium jarred Italian sauces, are just normal goods over here and a fraction of the cost.

Grocery shopping in Sofia was a positive experience, but I’m not sure it would be worth planning a day trip there to do it again since the buses are rather erratic. I would be better off making an effort to go to Teteven.

It was 11AM when I came out of Lidl and I decided to head straight to the bus station. I knew it had good bathrooms, several restaurants, and a waiting area, so it would be worth getting there with lots of time to kill in case I had trouble finding my bus. I must be psychic…

I hailed a cab and the driver appeared put upon with taking me the couple of klicks to the bus station (really, I could have walked, but I knew I had to lug my suitcase that far once I got home so no point getting fatigued to save about 4.50CAD). We got to the station and my total was just under 6GBN. I handed the driver two 1BGN coins and a 5BGN note. When he realised I was giving him a tip, the driver’s demeanour completely changed! He had popped the truck for me to get my suitcase and now hurried to get out of his seat to pull the suitcase out for me!

I got into the station and went to the electronics departure board (very small). It listed the departures until about 1PM and there was no Teteven on it.

There are about 28 wickets for the various bus companies, each listing the towns serviced and the departure times. I went through them repeatedly and… no Teteven.

I went to the information desk and asked, “Bus to Teteven?” The woman sighed and replied in perfect English, “Figure it out yourself.” Really! And she had been equally rude to the Bulgarian ahead of me as he literally left her counter in tears! Now that I think about it, that makes me feel better…

I went to the one window where I had seen Yablanitsa listed, thinking that might be it. The woman told me, in perfect English, to go to information!

It was almost noon by this point. I pulled up the bus station website on my phone and managed to get back to the screen that had suggested to me there might be a Teteven-bound bus at 12:30. I’m telling you, if I wasn’t as comfortable as I am now reading Cyrillic, I would have been at a dead end because I only had the stress of copy and pasting to Google Translate anything I wasn’t sure about, not the stress of staring at a language that might as well have been hieroglyphs. When I got to that screen, I saw that there was another name after Teteven, Ribaritsa. I looked up at the departure board and there was Ribaritsa, at the very bottom, leaving from “sector” 32 at 12:30. I had a departure gate, but still no idea where to buy a ticket.

I went to all the windows again and did not see Ribaritsa. I decided to take a chance that I could buy a ticket from the driver and to just go to the departure spot. En route, I picked up a cheese croissant to eat on the bus (spoiler: yum!).

I got to sector 32 at 12:20, just as a bus marked Ribaritsa pulled up. Soon as the driver was available, I asked him, “To Teteven?” He said yes. So far so good! He then wanted to put my suitcase under the bus. That wouldn’t do because I wanted to get dropped off at the turnoff to the village and was sure it would be hard enough to get him to do that, never mind get out and pull out my suitcase. His helper was pretty insistent so I said, “Not Teteven, Malak Izvor.” That stopped them dead. I mimed, “Here’s Yablanitsa, here’s Teteven, here’s Malak Izvor,” and got some confused looks. The driver then become my first hero of the day when he very patiently waited for me to pull up a map on Google. By the way, Google is as slow on blazing fast Bulgarian Internet as it is on slow poke Canadian internet!

Once the map was up, I pointed to Yablantisa and said, “Bus,” then showed the bus route to Teteven. That got me a “Da.” I then showed the turn off for Malak Izvor and then said “I” and then “walked” my fingers from the turnoff to the village. He went, “Oh!” and then “Two kilometres.” I replied in the affirmative to which I earned a “Dobre!” He then tried to take my suitcase again and I let him. When he came back, I asked, “Ticket?” (which, mercifully is “bilet,” so close to the French “billet”) and he motioned for me to go in and said what sounded like conductor. I went in, got comfortable, and just before we took off, his helper handed me two tickets totally 7BGN (1BGN more than the trip to Sofia) and had change for my 20!

Knowing that I would be let off at the turnoff meant that I could sit back and enjoy my trip without worrying about getting stranded in Teteven. I read for a bit, then enjoyed the scenery. We detoured to the town of Pravets before going through Yablanitsa. No one got off there. Next stop was me!

The nicest man in Bulgaria got off the bus with me (at least, I think he did, because I have no idea where else he could have materialised from). He earns his title in that he… lugged my suitcase all the way to the village!!!!!!!!!!! He wanted to take it straight to my place, but I made him hand it over at the guest house, before the final slog, because I didn’t want to take advantage of him! He babbled to me the whole way and I just shook my head apologetically. I don’t know who was more pleased when he said, “Ulitsa?” (street) and I had an answer for him! But even better, he had no idea where my street was and with my saying, “Store, hotel, [my street name],” miming the location of each, he understood!

Just the little slog at the end was exhausting so I can imagine what shape I would have been in if I’d had to drag the suitcase the whole way (although I suspect I would have gotten a lift if I’d been on my own). The bus driver and this man both made up for a lot on Monday.

The dogs were very happy to see me when I got in and the feeling was mutual! Max had left me a list of things to add to my chore list and a note that he’d be back on Friday.

So that was my great big Sofia adventure! It broke the ice on a lot. The next thing I want to try is to take a bus to Teteven and back, but that might be very tricky and could require me to leave at the crack of dawn and not come back till early evening. I might be better off finding out how much a taxi would cost. But I’m glad I figured out the buses, ate at restaurants, and was forced to use some of the Bulgarian I’ve been stowing away in my brain.

I will be taking about a week off at the end of August (when Max will be here with his daughter), renting a car, and going on a grand tour of Bulgaria. In the meantime, I will try to get out into the environs a bit and possibly return to Sofia one more time. I can’t believe we’re already three weeks into July! I knew my time here would fly by!

July 19, 2016 by Rae

First Weekend in Sofia, Free Sofia Tour Sunday Morning

Checking into the hotel on Saturday afternoon, I saw a flyer advertising a walking tour. I realised that that would be the best way to get to know the city. So I got on Google to see what English-language tours were available (I never trust anything advertised at the hotel) and found the Free Sofia Tour. It’s a great business model — you get a super high quality tour by a qualified guide who will take you to everything you need to see in Sofia and then then they tell you about their paid themed tours. I did one of those tours Sunday afternoon and hope to be back for the other one at a later day! Even though the free tour is free, I, of course, gave my guide a decent tip.

The free tour started at the court house at 11AM. It was a huge crowd and we were split into three groups. The tour takes two hours so there is no way I am going to remember everything our guide, Nikola, told us, but I will do my best! Follow the links if you want more information.

Our first stop was the Eastern Orthodox Holy Sunday Church, which was razed during an assault in 1925 and subsequently rebuilt. It was the worst terrorist attack in history up to that point, especially considering that high ranking members of the military and government were assassinated. It was an attempt to kill the king, who happened to be late to the service.

Our next stop was the statue of Saint Sofia, which is an embarrassment since Sofia was not named for this saint, but rather for a church. Adding insult to injury, the statue has pagan symbols and the woman’s dress is too revealing. Sofians are rather divided over this statue being the new symbol of their city. Personally, I love it. 🙂

This is the only Catholic Church in Sofia. It will have importance in a moment.

The tourist info centre is in the pedestrian underpass across from the Saint Sofia statue.

This is Church of St. Petka of the Saddlers. What’s interesting in this location is that you see how Sofia is a city that was built in layers and this is a prime location to see the major layers, from Roman to modern times. I was rather reminded of Seattle, actually. The church was built in medieval times from Roman structures. Those rocks out front are part of those Roman structures.

Sofia lies over the site of the ancient city of Serdica. While excavating for the new subway lines, all manner of ruins were found and delayed the project. The exposed ruins have been made part of a “pedestrian zone” and you can walk through them. We will see more of them shortly!

Behind the ruins is the only mosque in Sofia, complete with a minaret. I had hoped to visit inside, but they are doing renovations and weren’t allowing in tourists this weekend. I would have been welcomed under normal circumstances since I was dressed appropriately. Sofia does not have a large Muslim population and this is why there is only one mosque. There were others in the past, which were destroyed or repurposed.

And here is the roof of the Sofia synagogue.

So there is are an Eastern Orthodox and Catholic church, a mosque, and a synagogue all within sight of each other in Sofia, forming the “Square of Tolerance.” This was my favourite part of Sofia!

Next stop was the former bathhouse where people would come for a day to pamper themselves and chat.

I didn’t have time to go in this weekend, but appreciated my guide’s reaction when I painstakingly read the sign and said, “Oh, it’s the Sofia history museum!”

The bathhouse was left to fall into ruin, but was very recently made into the museum. The inside is apparently glorious. It’s on my list for my next trip!

Here is Nikola filling his water bottle at the mineral spring outside the bathhouse. The water is hot and very stinky!

Now, we come to the three buildings I photographed the day before not realising their importance. That one in the middle used to have a big red star at the top where the Bulgarian flag now flies. It was the former headquarters of the Communist party and now has government offices.

This is the Presidency Building and the one across from it is the Council of Ministers building. Now, we will go underground and see what that glass dome is covering!

Tah-dah! More ruins of Serdica!

This is the eastern gate into Serdica.

Guards standing in front of the presidency building. Let’s see if I can remember what Nikola had to say because it was hilarious. Something along the lines of, “There’s a changing of the guards you can see. It’s not Buckingham Palace, but it’s cute.” Bulgaria has both a president and a prime minister and the latter is the one with real power.

Behind the presidency building is a treasure, the Church of St. George, dating back to the 4th century. Apparently, it’s still the original roof?! The church is known for its frescoes, but I didn’t get to go in on this trip.

This is the national theatre.

I loved this building with its cheery colour!

This former police station became the royal palace…

This is where we stopped to do a bit of a reenactment of Bulgarian governance in the 20th century, with members of the group reluctantly agreeing to be the German and Austrian who would each become a monarch of Bulgaria, the Italian who married the Austrian and produced the first true Bulgarian monarch in a long time, and the Bulgarian monarch. Once all these roles were cast, Nikola asked for someone to play the Communist. Yours truly promptly volunteered. 😀 As it turns out, “I” did better than all the others in governing Bulgaria the longest since “I” was able to transition into democracy. Fun fact about Bulgaria: it is (as far as I know) the only country in the world that democratically elected a former king to be its prime minster!

The tour ended with Sofia’s famous Alexander Nevsky Cathedral.

There was a wedding at the Saint Sofia Church, from which the city got its name, so we weren’t able to get good photographs of it.

The Alexander Nevsky Cathedral is amazing!

This is where the tour ended. I have not even come close to conveying all the information I got about Bulgaria and Sofia. This is a country with a very messy history and I couldn’t do justice to Nikola’s attempts to unravel it all for us. I will have more when I move to my review of the Communist tour.

Nikola gave me a discount coupon for their the Communist tour later that afternoon and then I headed off to find some lunch.

I found myself back the Council of Minsters building. I will have more to say about these buildings when I review the Communist tour!

The pink building was not part of the complex, but was tied into it.

These ramps are used to move goods up and down into the underpasses. Women also use them for their push chairs.

These are really fancy. I saw some others that were just a metal rail going down the stairs.

I went back and got more exterior shots of the Church of St. George.

I thought this building was neat, with the way the windows were craved out of the corner.

I wanted pizza for lunch, something that is so ubiquitous in Bulgaria that the guide on my next tour said that it’s practically “Bulgarian food.” So I had lots of options on Vitosha Boulevard and only had to try two restaurants before I got service. I ordered a large beer and Margherita pizza (sauce and cheese). I wish I’d had more of that tomato on it because, dang! The pizza was the real thing. Mmm…

I’d walked for nearly three hours on the tour and knew the next tour would be three to four hours, so I decided to go all hog and order chocolate cake and an espresso after eating that entire pizza. I did not need to eat again all of Sunday, not even a before bed snack! So 15CAD for the meal, including a tip, was really good value!

I like how the restaurant built its roof around this tree:

So this takes us to about 3PM Sunday, with my next tour starting at 4PM. More after I do some work today!

A Life By Design

"Sometimes in life, we reach to a right place by departing from a wrong port with a wrong ship!" ~ Mehmet Murat Ildan

Restaurants

Free Plovdiv Walking Tour

Maluk Izvor to Plovdiv

A Successful Day Trip to Sofia

First Weekend in Sofia, Buying Groceries, the Bus Station from Hell, and the Nicest Man in Bulgaria

First Weekend in Sofia, Free Sofia Tour Sunday Morning