България

Sofia!
Saturday 27th June

Sofia is an interesting capital, nice and leafy, not too crazy busy and has a good helping of shops, cafes and 'sights' to keep anyone busy for a couple days. We had a slow morning as it was raining and we called a few people with Skype and basically caught up on some things until the rain stopped.

We headed out and saw some people graffiti painting, unfortunately the monument we went to see was behind all those panels and scaffholding, but hey it was interesting to watch anyway. We sat in the park and ate the biggest and best slice of pizza ever (you needed two hands) and it was only 1.60 Lev which is about $1.20!!!
We did a walking tour of Sofia's centre and was entertained by riot police, markets and street performers....

This is the old Communist head quarters
Saucy Saint Sofia who the city is named after.
The church also named after St Sofia. There was a big fancy wedding on when we visited so we didn't go inside, but on our way back past we were being hassled by a begger lady and the bride and groom were leaving and the begger lady went up and hassled them as well!! So rude!
Crazy statue/ monument we found in Sofia's backstreets. Seems to be some kind of gun-fight :)
The ministry of agriculture building
We were excited cos we found a shop that sold Havaiana's for only $14!! just in time too because Nick's old faithfuls were coming to an end. We hadn't seen them anywhere else in Europe except in a Brazillian imports shop!

We got back to the hostel in time for the 'free dinner' then headed out with the dorm buddies to see what saturday night in downtown Sofia had to offer. After a lot of walking, we finally asked a local and found a decent cheap place to hang out for a while. So we stayed there for a while getting to know the 3 aussies, 2 brits and one crazy swede a bit better; until the owners said we had to go inside because the beer garden was closing (they have whingey neighbours). We weren't keen on sitting inside so the whole band of us hit the road to search for another place. Overall Sofia was pretty quiet, so half the group headed off to find a drum and bass club while the other half (us and a really nice couple from melbourne) bailed out early.
Sunday 28th June
We headed out to look around Sofia and ended up at a quiet cafe reading (it was raining). Once the rain had let up a bit we kept up our window shopping/ sightseeing tour of Sofia and felt ourselves unnaturally lured back to our awesome pizza slice stall :) :)
"ughhh I shouldn't have eaten that last burger...." a regretful customer outside Macca's.
That night at the hostel it was Sunday night and everyone stayed in playing cards, talking and watching TV. It was a good night in, even if I did lose hand after hand at cards (didn't matter what game we were playing).

Monday 29th June
This morning we packed up and headed for the bus with an aussie couple we met, we were heading east and they south. We arrived in Veliko Tarnovo about 4:30 in the afternoon and headed straight to a cafe to hang out for a while until our couchsurfer host finished work. 6pm rolled around pretty quick and we met up with Rositsa and headed to the bus stop. Rositsa and her family live in a little village just a short bus ride outside Veliko Tarnovo.
Pretty soon we were sitting on their little balcony eating Salata (salad) and fresh bread. Once her husband (Stefan) got home he brought out all the home made drinks (and I don't mean Juice!) They made what they called 'grappe' which was a white spirit made out of several fruits that they grew in their orchard, and red wine that they made from their own grape vines. They said that pretty much every home in the neighbourhood would make their own alcohol of some kind.

We kept saying 'no more' but our plates and glasses were continually refilled until the early hours of the morning. Rositsa and Stefan ate like one bowl of salata the whole night but Stefan kept refilling our plates and going away and cooking more things and bringing them out, we had some kind of Chicken risotto, kebabs, meatballs, eggs, dozens of different toppings on bread... it was crazy. Needless to say yet again we were blown away by peoples hospitality and how generous they were. It was a great night. One of the funniest thing was trying to communicate with Stefan, he spoke French, and only a tiny bit of English, and I spoke like the tiniest bit of French (and Nick none) and yet we still managed to have a conversation when Rositsa wasn't there translating. The catch phrases for the night were 'Nicky- Beer' meaning Nick pour yourself some more beer before Stefan does... And 'Mange, mange' which means 'eat, eat'.

Tsarevets Fortress

Tuesday 30th June
We headed into town for some much needed brunch and had a delicious salata. We were quickly discovering that Bulgarians loved their salad and they knew how to make them! Their 'traditional' salad is kind of similar to greek salad in ingredients, it has tomato, cucumber, green capsicum, onion and white cheese grated on top; its called Shopska. So Good!
Then we made our way down towards Tsarevets Fortress which is a sprawling citadel ruled from by Thracians, Romans and Byzantines. The ruins were cool but even better was this church right on top that they've renovated and the interior is painted in this modern graffiti style art with all traditional themes (Mary, Jesus, saints).
Semi low relief high relief... only Suze and Ange have the artistic knowledge to understand that!
We headed back towards town to meet up with Aleksander, Rosista's son, as he'd offered to show us around town. Once we caught up with Alex and his girlfriend we headed down to see Asenevs Monument which pays tribute to four kings. Its massive and cool. The Kings all look very Lord of the Rings-ish. We walked around the other side of Veliko Tarnovo and through a beautiful park before we bid farewell to Alex and his gf and (after grabbing some supplies at the market) headed back to Rositsa's to pack up some things for mailing and address some post cards! On the way home we met Rositsa's daughter who was quite perplexed by the strange foreigners who seemed to be stalking her, but one call to her mum and she happily let us in the house :)
The gorge with Veliko Tarnovo perched above.

An old Inn at Arbanassi

When Rositsa arrived home she took us, along with Alex, out to see the village of Arbanassi. Arbanassi is like 'old world Bulgaria' and has dozens of old style villas and taverns. It also has a 16th Century church which was built to look pretty ordinary from the outside, to disguise it from those marauding Ottomans. Inside however is bursting with awesome murals, murals that we didn't get to see because it was closed... but we had fun anyway and the views from Arbanassi are gorgeous.
Dinner was much the same again with the force feeding and the 'Nicky- beer' however we were stronger (not to mention quite sleepy) so we managed to get to bed by midnight for some much needed rest.
Tsarevets by sunset...
On the balcony with Rositsa and Stefan... before the force feeding began :)

Wednesday 1st July
We are off to the coast!!! Varna on the Black Sea coast to be precise and we arrived just after 1pm. I phoned the couchsurfer guy, and pretty soon he and another couchsurfer (an american) met us at the bus station. We headed into Varna for an afternoon walking tour with Nik (the couchsurfer host) as our guide. We saw the beach, a pirate ship, the Cathedral and the main sites around Varna. We bid farewell to the other couchsurfer (he was leaving tonight) and Nik. Nik offered to pick us up in town after he dropped the american guy at the train station that evening. So we spent the rest of the afternoon/ evening strolling around listening to political debates (in bulgarian), watching fashion shows and bulgarian pop music performances and eating traditional bulgarian food at this great 'point & pay' place. Needless to say it was a fun filled night.


Orthodox Cathedral

Thursday 2nd July
Nik took us to a traditional bulgarian breakfast spot and we ate cheese filled pastry for breakfast!! He had also told us about his favourite beach Cabukam beach which was about 30 mins north of Varna so we got on a bus and headed for clear water! The beach really was gorgeous and we spent half the day there, reading and taking little dips in the Black Sea. We caught the bus back into town and went in search of a bus company that goes to Istanbul and look around Varna some more. We found yet another 'point & pay' place and had another delicious bulgarian salad for dinner. That night Nik helped us plan the rest of our stay in Bulgaria. We had wanted to rent a car and explore the coast north and south of Varna, but he suggested that if we stayed another night he would take us for a tour of the north coast and then we could go south the next day.


Nick on Cabukum beach, the Black Sea- see no waves!


Friday 3rd July

Nik, Nick, Dimitrina, Dessy and I began our mini road trip north of Varna. First stop was Balchik for perusing a summer house for the Romanian Queen (back when that area was part of Romania), Wine tasting, and strolling through the gorgeous gardens. Balchik is like a quiter resort town, still with the usual restaurants and bars along the water front and crystal blue water... but less busy than Varna, probably because the beaches aren't quite as nice as Varna.
On the way to the next stop Niki got pulled over by the Police. The police are extremely corrupt in Bulgaria (along with the politicians and just about everyone in a position of authority). The speed Nik was going he should have lost his license for a month, so he headed over with his best 'what can we do to clear up this mess officer?' (you have to do this in Bulgaria because if you just say 'how much?' the police assume you are wearing a wire). Shockingly enough the police let him go, no fine, no bribe... everyone in the car was thoroughly shocked, especially the Bulgarians.

Next we stopped at some fabulous ruins at Kavarna, which is a long cape that comes right out into the Black Sea. We walked through the ruins and then had lunch (it was by now 4pm) at the restaurant overlooking the amazingly blue waters below. After visiting a spot on the tip of the cape which was supposedly where a whole bunch of maidens (I think 12?) jumped into the water to drown rather than be conquered by some army that were approaching.

Last and definitely not least was Tyulenovo, a small fishing village that just happens to be adjacent to some beautiful coastline, think twelve apostles only smaller scale so you can climb down and look at caves and go swimming. It was a really beautiful, peaceful place. Perfect way to finish a long day, plus there were no tourists there which made it that much more peaceful!

We got back to Niki's and he made Shopska salad for us and french fries with cheese :) :) overall a fab day...Tyulenovo
Nik, Dimitrina, Nick & Dessy at Tyulenovo
The whole group at Karvana
Cool sculpture
Black sea
Ruins at Kavarna


Kavarna
Gardens at Balchik

Dessy, Nik & Dimitrina wine tasting
Sunset at Varna

Youths' Hangin out, Varna style


Saturday 4th July

Kamchia!
We got up early to catch the 8am minibus that goes to Kampchia, a fishing village/ beach holiday spot which is enormously popular with Bulgarians. Unfortunately we had no map or even a discription of the place... we figured- its small, the bus will drop us off at the village- wrong. The bus dropped us off at a massive (though deserted) resort which is about 3km up the road from the fishing village. We didn't know this though so we wandered about 1km in each direction and seeing nothing, we were seriously flummuxed :) Nick was ready to get on the next bus going back to Varna (which wasn't until 4pm mind you), but I was determined to find the beach. I followed high school children (who were staying at the resort) that were walking along with towels and beach gear and eventually found the beach. Even more luckily there were shops at the beach so I found someone who spoke English and asked where the campground was and where the river was, as Niki had said it was nice to camp near the river, but we were thinking we needed showers etc... It turned out the camp ground was 2km in one direction and the river was 1km in the other direction! Without sunglasses or a hat (didn't think of those when I was in the shady spot I left Nick), I started the long trek down the beach to the camp ground. So no-one in Bulgaria camps in a tent, they all hire cabins, but the camp ground people said we could pitch our tent and have the key to a cabin to use the facilities... all for 40 Leva per night which is about $35. The cabins looked kind of dingey and they were a good ten minutes walk back from the beach so I decided to head for the river.

I found the river and finally some bush that looked suitable for pitching a tent. No toilets or showers though! I walked further along and found the fishing village, asked more people about camping but got no positive responses so I walked up a road that looked like it might join up back where I'd left Nick at least an hour or so before. It did, so I took him down to the fishing village and showed him the free camp spots and we both agreed there was enough shade and drift wood there to keep us comfy for two nights. As soon as Nick put up the tent, the storm clouds rolled in! So frustrating considering it had been sweltering all day not a cloud in sight!!!
We headed to the beach (just about 50 m away) for a dip and we'd been there about 20 mins when it started raining. We raced back to the tent and piled in wet, took about 20 minutes to realise this is stupid sitting in the cramped tent we might as well go to one of the restaurants in the fishing village, so we made a dash for the only restaurant in town.
Eventually the rain eased off enough for us to head back to the camp spot, collect some dry kindling and fire wood and make a good fire for cooking our dinner.We found a massive log down by the beach and it took the two of us about ten minutes to drag the massive thing back. We decided since it was just heavy, not awkward, we would run until one of us couldn't hold it anymore, then have a break... it worked quite well even if we did look stupid! We had potatoes cooked with tomatoes (pretty yummy) and salad. The rain held off enough for us to enjoy the evening by the fire.


Our little spot- our tent is awesomely camoflaged!

Sunday 5th July

It wasn't raining when we woke up so we thought excellent, beach day! Again it only held off for about an hour or so and it started raining. This time I thought 'I've got nowhere better to be, I'm staying!' so I sat in the water and Nick sat under the umbrella while it rained. Eventually it eased off again so we had a good couple of hours at the beach. We basically spent the best part of the day lazing around reading our books (I finished Lord of the Rings!!!) and I spent about two hours in the afternoon seaching for kindling, because we didn't have much small wood for the fire. There were fishermen near our little camp spot all day, fishing in the river. They left quite a mess behind when they left, I can't get over how much people litter! I swear its not so bad in Australia! They were friendly enough though. That night we cooked out dinner on the coals again, we had potato and tuna this time, with salad :) The mosquitoes were ferocious this night, it seems like they just discovered we were there and called all their friends for a feast! The fire helped keep them away a little bit though.

The Chef, looking after the fire and the food.

Sunrise over the sand

Monday 6th July

I woke up at 5:30 to get some photos of the dawn and the sun rising over the Black Sea. It was a really beautiful sun rise. I headed back to start packing my bag and woke Nick up to pack his. We were up at the bus stop an hour before the bus arrived when an old lady in a taxi pulled up and said 5 Lev each to Varna. The bus was 4 Lev each so we jumped in and we were back in Varna by 9am!

The RiverSunrise over the river, the sand and the ocean.

We were pretty dirty and tired so I left Nick sitting in the park and went and asked the prices of a few hotels. I went into one pretty fancy place and asked the price, the guy said 100 Lev. I said I only have 60, he said done! yay! so we got great room for a good price and clean towels and bed linen (all of ours were not-quite-clean).... I went and bought our ticket to Istanbul and brought back some take away lunch. The only disappointment was the hotel only had a dry-cleaning service, not just laundry so to get our clothes washed it would've cost more than the room itself! So we hand washed a few essentials and then went out for dinner for our last night in Varna, Bulgaria.

Having a black on the black sea.

Tuesday 7th July

Bus to Istanbul!!!!!!!