The Ups and Downs of Bulgaria

After our rough start to Bulgaria we were hoping for something to really inspire us and take our breath away to make it worthwhile. It was only at our last stop that we finally found a beautiful place to enjoy. Bulgaria is known particularly for being a perfect destination to grab some time in the Black Sea, but given the weather we skipped the coast to see Bulgaria’s other known highlights. 

Plovdiv

Plovdiv is the second largest city in Bulgaria (after Sofia), and it ranks amongst the oldest cities in the world. It’s fair to say that this place has a fair bit of history to share. We arrive to a tired looking area, which seems unloved with holes in the pavement and the need to watch every step and loads of graffiti – this city didn’t really inspire us from the set out. There was still a little sun left in the sky so we went into the old town to the Roman theatre built in the 2^nd century. This theatre is still functioning and in use for summer performances. 

With what was left of the light we explored a number of churches and temples on offer. Orthodox seems to be the most dominant religion here, along with Muslims as it is so close to Turkey. 

In the morning we came back to Plovdiv old town and saw some of its most impressive old buildings still in beautiful condition from the 18^th century. There is a distinct style about these buildings and most of them have been transformed into museums. We enjoyed visiting the Ethnographic Museum which walks you through the history from about 1500 to 1900 and shows essentially what makes Bulgaria, Bulgaria. It was a great way to find out a bit more about this culture rich country, but it also is sad to see so many trades which were once booming now dying away or no longer profitable in the world we now live in. The building itself belonged to one of the wealthiest families in Bulgaria and it is something special in its own right. Lonely Planet says that Plovdiv has lovely cobbled streets to explore – these cobbled streets are something else. They are more like someone grabbed all the boulders and unevenly placed them everywhere with anything other than a 4x4 not really cutting it.

Hisar

Hisar is a little town in the middle of nowhere Bulgaria. It’s locally famous though for two reasons. 1. Extensive Roman ruins. 2. Natural mineral springs. The second things makes it very popular with lots of spa hotels offering mineral pools, hot springs, massages etc. We couldn’t pass up a chance to spend a night in a spa resort and relax in a pool and a good massage after Budapest so we caught a local bus out to Hisar and spent a glorious afternoon relaxing in the hot tub, mineral pool, steam room and sauna. Later we had the most incredible massage we’ve had, possibly ever. It was a luxurious, lazy and indulgent break and I wish we had stayed three more days. The next morning we hit the road again onto our next stop. We didn’t get the chance to see the extensive roman ruins, other than the ancient walls from our hotel window, but we were quite ok with our decision to soak. We have no photos of Hisar as we literally walked from the bus stop to the hotel, didn’t leave the building and then back to the bus stop. Worth it.

Veliko Tarnovo

We had covered a lot of ground in Bulgaria and honestly had found it for the most part, pretty ordinary. The cities are dirty, ill-maintained, trash is everywhere and half-finished or ruined buildings here and there. We caveat that we have only been in winter and not during the high tourist time so maybe things are different then. But our experience is that it’s not exactly postcard material. Veliko Tarnovo somewhat changed that impression.

 

Veliko Tanovo is the belle of Bulgaria, said to be its most beautiful city and we must agree. It is set in some of the most beautiful Bulgarian mountain ranges and the city itself sits in the valley of multiples mountains and weaves around a snaking river with the houses neatly built up the hills. When we went out to explore and looked over the town from various viewpoints it looked like a winter diorama. Homes sprinkled with snow, a semi frozen river and whiteness covering everything. Idyllic. 

We spent our days exploring the town, the famous fortress, being a little lazy and eating fantastic pizza. The highlight of our visit was exploring Tsarvets, the medieval fortress and former seat of power of the Bulgarian second empire. There is little there that survives from the middle ages besides the walls and foundations of structures but there is a church on the peak of the hill in the centre that was very unique. The Patriarchal Cathedral of the Holy Ascension of God (yep that’s a mouthful!) has been decorated with modern frescoes the likes of which we have not seen before (and we’ve seen A LOT of churches). It’s basically like someone has done scenes from the bible but in the most incredible street art.

The church is so photogenic the way it sits up on the hill surrounded by remnants of the fortress.

The views over the city from the fortress are remarkable. You can see the curvature of the river and the hills with all the buildings built into the hillside snaking around with the river. Veliko Tarnovo was easily the highlight of our Bulgarian adventure. During the summer this is the place to do all adventure activities with plenty of hiking, rock climbing etc. available. 

During our exploration of the fortress we made a snowman and threw approximately 900 snowballs at each other. 

We spent the remaining daylight wandering the city and checking out the Monument to the Asen Dynasty which sits on its own island, providing beautiful views of the houses on the hills. 

 

The Journey to Romania

Once again finding information to get to our next destination (Brasov, Romania) proves ridiculously hard so we resort to asking the receptionist for assistance. Despite a strong language barrier she found the bus and train times to at least get us to the border town of Ruse. Watching her working through the local system we learnt that it’s not just us who struggles to get information. Even the locals do with calling the train station and the bus station the only option for them, you can get times but then you can’t reserve tickets you need to show up and buy them. The ticket sellers are often rude and won’t hesitate to shout at you. Then you had better be ready to get on that bus as soon as it pulls up because it could well be oversold. On our first leg to Ruse we left several people at their stop because our minibus was full. Witnessing this and the overall state of things we couldn’t help but think how good we have it back home and how a few simple changes would make the system so much more efficient.

We arrive in Ruse and immediately are asked by a man if we are going to Bucharest and if we want a driver, after our border experience there is no chance in hell we’ll take that option so we ignore him and go inside to buy tickets. He follows us inside and listens our inquiries on busses to Bucharest and again offers to drive us, we ignore him again but when he goes to follow us out the door Amy quite firmly asks him to stop following us. He leaves us alone from there. Unfortunately sometimes you have to make people feel humiliated to leave you alone, its awful, but the louder you are and firmer you are it works. We get people are trying to make a living, but it gets old being seen as nothing but an ATM. We’ve bought tickets to Bucharest and the ticket lady tells us to wait on the street for the ‘minibus.’ Given we’re in a bus station we’re confused why aren’t we waiting on a platform? Sure enough waiting on the street a car like a VW Caddy pulls up with the rego plate matching our ticket, this is the ‘minibus’ for 5 passengers + driver. Whatever, we’re going with it. The trip to Bucharest is uneventful and travelling by ‘minibus’ is a lot faster than by regular bus. We make Bucharest at 3pm with the last leg to Brasov to go. Fortunately the train system is vastly easier than the busses and we get to Brasov without hassle. It’s been a long day and not one without some confusion but at least we didn’t end up on the side of the road at 11pm without a clue where we are or how to get where we’re going.

Lessons Learnt

• Whenever you feel different to people all you have to do is visit McDonalds. We’re are all the same inside that bastion of universal offerings. Families, kids, teenagers, even backpackers from Australia. Over here Maccas and KFC are not frequented by the same types at home, these global chains are cheap but not local cheap. In fact at Maccas and KFC this is the clear middle class territory.
• Even the people who live in Bulgaria find getting information difficult and when they do they hoard it.
• Driving on the right is not so terrifying.
• Do not ever attempt to cross multiple countries in Eastern Europe in a single day unless flying.
• We need more spa days in our lives.
• Respecting your country is important, the way you treat it influences how others will perceive it and treat it in kind.
• Chunks of ice that fall make a nasty mess, we walked past a totalled car that a massive piece of ice fell on. FACT there are 100 deaths from falling ice each year in Russia alone. These are the things we don’t have to worry about at home.
• Cyrillic is just too hard for us, please give us the comfort of the Latin alphabet any day. But it’s all good training for foreign alphabets as we’ve still got Greece, Israel, and Egypt to go and we will have no idea what’s going on there either. 

Parting Thoughts

  

Bulgaria has a modern capital, the Rila Monastery is stunning, there are glorious mountains, awesome snow (not that we really know much on that topic) with modern resorts, heaps of history spanning Roman, Ottoman and Communist rule and it has charm in its cobbled streets and timber houses, top this off it is unbelievably and wonderfully inexpensive.

• For us travelling is so much more than the places you see, it is the people you meet, and the people seem to leave one of the greatest impressions. Unfortunately we had pretty poor people interactions in Bulgaria, and found most people to be apathetic. This makes it difficult to care when others don’t. This was a real shame, and we are hoping this is only our experience.
• The view from the roads revealed the real state of the countries we visit outside of the tarted up tourist friendly areas. The scenery is often absolutely stunning with deep valleys, turquoise rivers and snow-capped peaks. Unfortunately the towns and roads are run down, piles of rubbish are everywhere and the lingering influence of a communist past is obvious. There are quite clearly no anti-litter laws and poor waste management, there is trash everywhere making the gorgeous countryside look like a tip.
• Getting around was a pain in the butt. Understatement of the trip.
• We have struggled to connect with Bulgaria, we are not sure why that is, but we just haven’t been excited by it. The highlight of the trip would be the spa in Hisar, the fortress in Veliko Tarnovo particularly the inside of The Patriarchal Cathedral of the Holy Ascension of God, and Bansko.
• Something we realised whilst at the spa hotel was that we take our buying power a little for granted in these eastern countries. When the food is so cheap, meals are less than half what you would pay for equivalent in Australia, you tend not to take in that the places you are eating are really nice for the local Bulgarians. So by wearing our everyday travelling clothes perhaps in a way we are being disrespectful being blasé about our appearance. Even in the nicest of restaurants we struggle to spend $50AUD. You can have 3 courses, each and cocktails and it still won’t break $50, its crazy, even with meals like fillet steak, mushroom sauce and truffle mash.
• Have you ever given thought to what would happen if McDonalds would collapse tomorrow? Strange we know, but these are the things we think of on the road. 
• You can do 140 on the motorway and people seem not to die, so Australia when are we going to follow in suit? The world is laughing at us.
• If the opportunity to return presented itself we would try Bulgaria again. We would try it under the conditions of sun, and spend time at the Dead Sea and getting out into the wilderness. 

Simon and Amy xoxo

This is our personal favourite photo it makes our sides split with laughter and is our submission for 2014 awkward family photos.