Novotel Plovdiv

... we put on our itinerary but did not book accommodation, transport etc in advance. We initially felt in the planning stages that we would see how tired we were and how much we could cram into a day in Sofia.<br><br>Going to Plovdiv was to prove to be one of the best things we have done. The Old Town was incredible and we stayed bang in the middle of it. The cobbled streets and incredible restored buildings were like nowhere we have seen in a while. There ...

... Bulgarian culture and religion were preserved during 500 years of Ottoman rule, so most of them are located in some out-of-the-way, mountainous region, and this monastery is one of the major ones. Inside its chapel is a 500 years old icon of St. Mary which is said to have healing power so there was a line of people waiting to pray in front of it and touch it. <br><br>I went back to the city and ...

9th June<br>Rila Monastery to Plovdiv<br>Sunny 31 degrees<br><br>We left the lovely Rila Monastery to drive to Plovdiv. It involved some backtracking to near Sofia and then on to the motorway to Plovdiv. Unfortunately, once again, the area is very smoggy and spoils what would be lovely views of the countryside and mountains. We arrived in Plovdiv and found our hotel ...

... notes out of his wallet as keepsakes and the he was gone. The rest of the journey was routine although we did wonder for a bit if we were on the right bit of the train when it split in two just before the border. Fortunately we were and soon we arrived at our destination of Plovdiv. There was no specific reason why we had chosen Bulgaria's second city to stay we had just heard from a few people that it was nicer than the capital Sofia and it was a bit nearer Turkey. Our directions to ...

Saturday 16th May. We packed up and were on the road reasonably early and headed towards the border of Croatia where we crossed the border and drove through past Zagreb and towards Serbia. All was good and roads were fine though we had to pay tolls along the motorways we soon added up but it was a quicker way to drive there than the free regional roads. At the border of Serbia things got interesting as the border controls insisted we had to pay insurance as they said ...

On the way to Plovdiv, Bulgaria, I met an interesting Japanse. He was living in Istanbul and studying Turkish at a international language school. After he worked for an NGO in Afganistan for 2 years, he came to Istanbul to study Turkish. He told me that he would like to work in Turkey in the futere. I just listened to his talk and learned a lot about Turkey. I also learned that yogurt was originally from Turkey, not Bulgaria, which ...

It's been a great visit so far, The first weekend I was here myself and Svetla went on a 2 day coach trip with her former teaching coleagues, because they are teachers the trip was subsidised by the government which meant that the cost of the trip including coach and hotel stay was very cheap!!!! On this trip we visited the Bachkovo monastery, an observatory, a small historic village, stayed in a great hotel up on top of a big hill above the town of ...

... exterior they are simple enough, but a few interiors could be described as garish. There is a lot of wood and it mostly painted in bright colours. We weren't allowed to take photos but the painted columns did remind us that Roman cities were probably not as drab as the grey stones that remain of them. The last point of interest we tried to visit closed at the same moment we arrived. Another old Roman theatre (I am pretty bored of these but they are a tourist's staple). We met a ...

... is not a bad thing, it's a place of great culture and inherent beauty unfortunately left to seed after an era that showed no love for such heritage either. They call the architecture here 'Revivalist-era' and it dates from the mid 19th century. It's certainly unusual and highly decorative, with various designs painted directly on white, brown, blue or orange ...

I am very frustrated at this moment as I typed for 30 minutes straight, only to lose all my precious words. Fortunately for me, it only costs 30 cents for 45 minutes at the computer. You may wonder why I am in an internet cafe, blogging in the middle of the day during my adventure here in Bulgaria. One, it takes me back to my time in Korea...and two, I bought a notebook yesterday, but I find that writing in it does not give the same feeling of freedom in writing down my thoughts. I am ...