Chook and I went to Bulgaria for the last ten days of August for romantic European cultural, natural and beachy relaxation.
Started in Sofia, the capital
and moved down to Blagoevgrad, the district capital and university city surrounded by foresty hills.
From there we took a day trip to Rila Monastery, the biggest in the country, alone in the middle of a valley and up in the mountains.
We then went to Plovdiv, the "Paris of the Balkans" with cobbled streets, Roman ruins and numerous art galleries.
From there to Burgas, on the coast, from whence we went first to Nesebar (international touristy beachy and UNESCO world heritage site)
and then Kiten (Bulgarian touristy beach). here are assorted highlights and descriptions.
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Sofia is a boring capital city of which we saw two parts : the center with its big roads, plazas, communist buildings, cranes and renovations and domed Orthodox churches; and a nicer, small streets and less trafficky part to the North.
One modern, luxurious department store near the former communist headquarters (roughly six times the size of the Parliament) was deserted; another, selling mainly food in a turn of the 20th iron and steel building, was packed.
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Blagoevgrad is a nice pedestrian student town dedicated to concrete and
set amongst rolling forested hills. Our hotel was overrun with wedding and birthday parties. Place was vaguely shabby but had loads of restaurants and we checked out the jazz club.
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From there we took a bus to Rila Monastery (rebuilt in 19th)
which is stunning and set in a valley sided with mountains of forests and torrents. It comprises a church, loads of arched galleries and lurid murals.
Best thing ever though was when we explored an old abandoned building nearby, which was a former restaurant/hotel from the Soviet times. It had just been locked up and left, and we stepped back in time into the restaurant, the kitchens and in the old wallpapered bedrooms (still partly furnished) before getting told off. Even found a crate of vodka bottles saying "Made in USSR"! Missed the last bus back to Rila village (22 km away down forest road) and hitched a ride with a tourbus of Bulgarian pilgrims.
Plovdiv, a couple of hours away by bus is in the center of the country.
It's a strange mix : roman ruins, loads of art galleries, long pedestrian shopping roads, squares with cafés, winding cobbled streets that climb around the hill, brightly painted museum/houses from the 19th. Lovely, except for huge motorway that zooms under the hill (we had a romantic dinner overlooking it). We visited a house/art museum full of beautiful antique furniture and Bulgarian paintings from the 19th onwards, saw Roman amphitheater
and a small roman stadium which is now surrounded partially built over with concrete blocks and is semi-submerged under a shopping street.
It was also in Plovdiv that we were confronted with the worst, most disgusting cocktail ever, which I ordered because I couldn't figure how it could be drinkable; it wasn't.
Sweet sin: whisky, peach liqueur, Bailey's, pineapple juice.
Time to hit the beach. Bus to Burgas on the black sea coast and then to Nesebar, UNESCO world heriage site. It is a kilometer or so away from Slanchev Bryag, or Sunny Beach, which is overrun by the mafia, fluorescent British tourists reading the Sun, touts and shops selling beach equipment. We spent less than ten minutes there (time to walk through it) and headed
for Nesebar which is exactly the same only has monuments instead of the beach (actually it does have one, which we tested : rocks and algae but good waves). Lots of old churches filled with icons and little streets lined with traditional wooden houses.Very touristy but does have a few interesting old buildings scattered about and a very lovely coastline though, must be nice out of season.
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And finally in Kiten we did absolutely bugger all except lie on the beach, surf the waves, get sunburnt, eat (including excellent calamari) and laze by the pool. This latter we had access to, having the choice between the nicest and most expensive hotel in town and the Hotel Balkanika, which could have been the setting for a movie on abandoned mental asylums in the 1930s. It was cracked, peeling, overgrown and had a view over the municipal rubbish dump. So we went to the other.
On the way back to Sofia, we stopped for the day in Burgas from where we were going to take the nighttrain. It's a coastal city but not touristy, so we checked out the beach, the ethnographical museum and the archeological museum. The beach had its share of rather dingy looking parasols but also a concrete jetty, an abandoned water slide, and Burgas international shipping port. By the beach were
more abandoned buildings from Soviet times, including a large boat/restaurant which, according to a guy we got chatting to, was once a fashionable spot for Communist officials from all over the eastern block. Impossible to get close too unfortunately.
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And other :
*Food: two kinds of cheese : white (Sirene - feta) and yellow (Kashkaval- bland cheddar). Menus also proudly boast "processed cheese".
*Bulgarian girls, despite diet of pizza, hot dogs and cheese, are all incredible slim and stunning. The preferred uniform is micro-shorts, micro top, huge 80s haircut, long painted nails and high heeled sandals. Gulp. the men are plump, non descript and apparently hairless (study undertaken at Kiten beach).
*Bulgarian wine is drinkable : Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon from Melnik region is well known. We liked the Chateau Boyar and drank Chateau Karnobat. Zagorka beer is good too.
* Food : a traditional salad is Shopska : cucumbers, tomatoes, onions topped with grated sirene
*The best thing in Bulgaria is Vishna Sok- cherry juice- which is usually sugar and water and about 10% fruit juice. Massively addictive.
* Bulgarians are obsessed with ghastly singing+ dancing in traditional folk costumes amongst mountainous scenery. At any given time two TV channels are playing some.
* Food : usually some kind of grilled meat (chicken, lamb or pork), either on a stick or just a chunk or meatballs. Fried potatoes (topped with cheese), various salads, Tarator (yoghurt, cucumber, dill and walnut) soup. Stuffed vine leaves and cabbage leaves. Bluefish (size of sardines) and many others by the sea, trout in the mountains. Endless supplies of junk food, from McDonalds to pizza, to homegrown burgers (revolting - plastic pig eyeball ham in panini bread and containing Russian salad and cabbage) and hot dogs and various sweet and savoury pastries. HOW do the girls do it? Most food comes in two possible portion sizes.
* Everything is written in the cyrillic, which is fun to learn and even better when you decode
words that mean something to you (office, McDonalds, garage and a lot of words are linked to French too).
*Bulgarian night trains are cold, uncomfortable, overbooked and loud Soviet pieces of shit that threaten to derail every second. Not recommended.
*To say "yes", the Bulgarians shake their head, not a side to side wobble like the Indians but an actual (to us) "no". Impossibly confusing.
*Beware, upon checking into a hotel, the plastic keyring : it means they are giving you the worst room ever. Twice we changed rooms after plastic keyring and the rooms were infinitely nicer.
*Food: Sach: a hot plate full of meat,onions and pickles. Nice.
*When someone dies, A4 pages are stuck around town with their photo, dates and so on. Lots outside churches (see photo) but also in the street, on front doors, in the churches, etc.
