Bulgaria... Kind of.

We spent 3 days in Bulgaria (with a little travelling time too) visiting the picturesque town of Plovdiv and the capital city Sofia. Even as we were planning we weren't sure if this was enough time but we tend to be quite fast at sight seeing and so we weren't too worried.

We arrived into Plovdiv at 3am after being dropped off by the most comfortable luxurious bus we've had all trip. There were individual touchscreens for each passenger that played movies, TV shows and games! Admittedly it was in Turkish but still, Solitaire is universal right?

Funnily enough there was nowhere open at 3am so we walked the streets and managed to find the railway station and sleep on a bench. This is not the best plan. It was cold and grim but at least we were in a fairly decent place. Once the cold got too much we went for a walk at 5.30am and found new town. Costa opened at 7 and I think it was the best coffee I've ever tasted!

The seating area outside our hostel

When we finally walked into the old town it was like walking into a fairy tale. All cobbled streets and old buildings. Its a beautiful little town and we would recommend it. However, I think we caught them on an off day. That funny time between tourist season and Christmas Markets (the stalls were being set up), so a lot of things were closed. We saw a great ethnographic museum (local culture) and a huge Roman stadium now used for theatre. Oh and of course delicious Offal Trough!

A stunning stained glass window in one of the
many orthodox churches

Offal Trough!

The really pretty Sofia Train Station

A quick train to Sofia later we were stood outside our new hostel. The dorm room turned out to be basically a spare room in a lady's house. But it was clean and she was friendly, so never mind. As we went out to explore Sofia we were greeted by police officers in riot gear surrounding all of the main tourist attractions! Turns out there was a scheduled protest by students that was going to take over the main roads of Sofia. Pants.

It was interesting to see the protest and it was all peaceful but as many a guidebook had already told us that tear gas travels pretty far on the wind and the police in Bulgaria like to use it we didn't stick around too long...

The friendly neighbourhood riot police

Student protesters

Their demands....??

We figured the next day would be better but it wasn't meant to be. There were still road blocks on many of the main areas and so we missed out on a lot of sights. It's a shame that we didn't get to see everything we wanted to but at the same time we did get a good feel of 'Downtown Sofia'.

We're now in Bucharest, after another overnight journey. This time by train. Initailly it was a bit confusing as the conductor didn't speak any english and she kep consulting a guy that looked like he'd come off the street, which made us even more uneasy when she gave him our tickets and he wouldn't give them back! Turns out he was another conductor that just didn't fancy wearing his uniform. We had a comfy 4 bed compartment to ourselves and managed to get a fair nights sleep before heading out to explore another city...

Soup seemed to be the national dish of Bulgaria. It was tasty!

A book vending machine! I love it!