Jul 30, 2012 - Sofia

Hi, Well we were travelling again today from Bucharest to Soffia Bulgaria. A long jaunt..we blew a hose again today which caused us to take longer to get to our destination. Lots of farms and horses and carts again. Went through the mountains...not much to tell just a few pics along the way. We are staying at the Hilton for the next 2 days..it is nice here,and really hot today 35 C!! We will be doing a tour of this city and will have more pics and better blog then. Till then we are off to drink some more wine. talk to you...

Jun 26, 2012 - Sofia - Bulgaria

Bulgaria is the land of gypsies and sunflowers. We spent a lot of time in the bus getting from Belgrade to Sofia and all I seemed to see was sunflowers. The trip was very rural and less advanced than what I’m used to with farmers still using hand tools in small plots. The highlight for Sofia was the Gypsy night where we visited a gypsy centre and ate lots of meat while watching traditional dancers. The drinks were free poured rather than measured which lead to inhibitions disappearing and dancing on the table – not me mind you – I just...

May 16, 2011 - Serbia to Bulgaria

Monday, May 16, 2011 Belgrade, Serbia to Sofia, Bulgaria After a wonderful night at the Best Western on Mike’s free points, we woke to another great breakfast buffet. The staff here has been so fun with lots of good service and fun laughs. We gave them the coordinates to the hotel so they could put them on their website for travelers coming in without maps on their GPS’s. We are so thankful for a fellow cacher in Phoenix for getting the Europe GPS Maps. They have taken us everywhere without any problems and even Serbia which local car GPS’s...

Jan 23, 2011 - Bulgaria

Approaching Sofia it started to rain. Again we were arriving in a new capitol city by night and now the added challenge of navigating the streets while it rained. We found the hostel we were to stay at but found it challenging driving through the narrow, scaffolded driveway to the parking. Hostel Mostel, owned by Assen’ was again someone who Erik had met at the Dublin conference. The common room of this hostel was simply delightful. Creatively decorated it certainly added a great vibe to the place. One of the highlights was their staff....

Sep 6, 2010 - Dupnitsa

Today we left Sofia for Rila monastery, which is located about 2 hours south of Sofia in the mountains. On the way we stopped in the town of Dupnitsa, which has a large Roma population. There are quite a few gypsies in Bulgaria, and they are some of the poorest people in Europe. In Dupnitsa, we visited a fairly well-to-do family in a typical Roma neighborhood, who prepared a simple lunch for us. It was very interesting, but I had mixed feelings about it. I'm not sure if it was my own uneasiness with the poverty; part of me felt like a rich...

Sep 4, 2010 - Sofia

Today was the first real day of the tour, and we spent it with a walking tour of the main sites of the city. We visited an orthodox church, a mosque and a synagogue, as well as several roman sites and communist era buildings. This place is full of Roman ruins. The presidency building has a large courtyard in the center with Roman ruins, including a church which is still in use today, which was a former Roman temple. The downtown area is a mix of run down, older buildings from the late 19th and early 20th centuries, big, blocky communist era...

Sep 3, 2010 - Bulgaria

I arrived in Sofia, Bulgaria today after getting up at the crack to catch an early flight to Milan. In the matter of a few hours, I went from summer to autumn; and from one world to another. Driving into the city from the airport, it looks much like other eastern european cities I've been in; rows of run-down communist era apartment buildings, abandoned factories, piles of junk and garbage in vacant lots, and rather sullen-looking people. I get the feeling they don't see many American tourists here, just from the stares I got walking down...

Jul 10, 2010 - Sofia

Momentan schienen wir nicht vom Glueck verfolgt zu sein. Sofia -der naechste Schock. So unfreundlich und unmotiviert wurden wir noch nie in einem Land empfangen, als in diesem noch relativ neuen EU-Land. Eventuell faerbten die tristen grauen Ostblock-Gebaeude aufs Gemuet der Bewohner ab ... Mit Englisch oder Deutsch kommt man auch nicht weit, nicht mal bei den Jungen. Fehlanzeige: Russisch oder Bulgarisch, die von den Bulgaren erfundene Kyrillische Schrift, in der alles angeschrieben war, half uns da auch nicht gerade weiter. So lernten wir...

Jun 30, 2010 - Sveti Sofia

I've always liked Sofia. It's not everyone's idea of a capital city, but it has a personality that differs markedly from Zagreb, Budapest and Vienna. It's definitively more eastern than these pretty westernised capitals. Like Belgrade, it's a bit scruffy around the edges--a walk in the rain over uncemented paving stones drenches your feet no matter how carefully one steps--and like Belgrade, it teeters on the border between west and east, uneasily perching itself between histories of the Ottoman occupation and life in the 20th century as...

Jun 8, 2010 - When Shaking Your Head Means Yes…

….and nodding your head means no. Where, you ask, does that happen? In Bulgaria. That is where Ruth and I spent 10 days at the end of May. We went because we heard there’s a need and we know some missionaries there. We first flew from Kiev to Dortmund, Germany where we attended the Tamil meeting. This language group belongs to those living in Sri Lanka. A family kindly let us stay with them overnight since our flight to Bulgaria was the next day. We had fun wearing sari’s to the park. We stayed in the capital Sofia in the Bethel there for 4...

Jan 27, 2010 - Test Entry - Bulgaria

Names Sofia was first mentioned in the sources as Serdica in relation to Marcus Licinius Crassus' campaigns in 29 BC. The name Serdica or Sardica (Σερδική, Σαρδική) was popular in Latin, Ancient Greek and Byzantine Greek sources from Antiquity and the Middle Ages; it was related to the local Celtic[4] tribe of the Serdi. The name was last used in the 19th century in a Bulgarian text, Service and hagiography of Saint George the New of Sofia: ВЪ САРДАКІИ. Another of Sofia's names, Triaditsa (Τριάδιτζα), was mentioned in Greek medieval...

Aug 26, 2009 - Sofia

Early rise 7.15am to coach. I skipped breaky, couldn't eat stale cereal to get to the coach early. Plus due to our location of the hotel, the bus was like a 10 min walk. We waited for ages for the bus to arrive at our stop. The reason being, bottles of alcohol (3) broke whilst Dave was driving to pick us up. This is another demonstration of the group not listening. They were told not to put their alcohol above in the open lockers, so what do they do, they leave it up there, then when we emptied the coach it all fell down. This caused us to...