Sveta Sofia Hotel

Due to a different perception of time we only travelled 13 instead of 18 hours from Vienna to Sofia which "enabled" us to spend 5 more valuable hours out in the freezing cold of Sofia, yeah!! Sometimes it's hard to believe that Bulgaria is a EU member... street conditions for cars and pedestrians are hazardous since there are many holes. The favourite food of Bulgarians seems to be pizza and we even met Mr. Flavio Ravioli alias Silvio Berlusconi who visited Sofia ...

... that it's a good idea to smuggle a bnuch of cigarettes into Bulgaria. Well, apparently, there were 10 ppl in on it, running around the cart, hiding cigarettes everywhere. It all started off with this 60 year old guy, hiding cigarettes between the doors of the train. Then, get this, the lady gets up on the seats, unscrews a panel and throws like over 5000 cigarettes up there. She put up 36 bricks of cigarettes. That's 400x 36...that's a lot. Needless to say, she ...

... agency near the market) didn't exactly work for Megan either. So we thought we were heading straight towards the Alexander Cathedral, but in reality we ended up making a squiggly line all over Sofia and totally blew past the Cathedral. But we did find a gorgeous theatre along the way, as well as some really nice parks. One of the defining features of the city was in fact the number of parks they had everywhere. After walking a bit of ways we decided that maybe we should ...

... the centre of which sits a cathedral of the same name. Also, to my delight, there was a sign directing me to an Irish pub just down the road. Sadly I didn't have time for that yet, I had stuff to see, food to eat and a facebook status to change. I walked to Tsar Osvoboditel street and took a few photos of the Party Building, guarded by two bored looking soldiers who bore more than a passing resemblance to Viktor Krum from the fourth Harry Potter book. A politician ...

We were only in Sofia, the capital of Bulgaria since 1879, for a night. Sofia is named after Saint Sofia, meaning wisdom in one language or another! : < ) Sofia had other names but has been around since Roman times and you see remains just laying around the city. We feasted on HUGE slices of pizza for about a dollar for lunch at a park. Of course, we then wandered around the city to see a few sites: Changing of the guards at the President's ...

... highlight was to bake pulla (Finnish pastries) and birthday cake at one most helpfull baba's place. It is nice that i have good memories of the last weeks but, to be honest, I would have gone nuts of that partying had lasted a bit longer. :). I remember that when i left from Hungary and also from the Netherlands, it felt as if somebody had ripped off everything I had. Leaving Macedonia was different and i hope it is better so. Too much melancholy and ...

... were selling, including a Nazi issue gold plated Leica camera that pained me to have to turn down. It would have been my prized possession. Alas.... Afterwards we walked around a bit more, saw some squares and more cool buildings. Then I got a hot dog which came in like a falafel bun, and was delicious. Afterwards we went to the fruit market for a little then went to the Bulgarian culture center near the statue to commemorate the Russian military freeing them ...

... is Candy, another Topdeck tour guide. She's joined our tour because she's never been to Bulgaria and Romania before and her next tour is the next 49-day Mega European one. So she's with us for 1 week for a crash course and then she gets to takeout her own group...ain't she lucky? We had a party in room #1415 during which we drank all the alcohol left behind by Susie and Lex (mainly Susie I think), it rapidly turned into a vodka party as we ...

... little modern-world-on-wheels pass through their quiet landscape. In the villages, bright red peppers hung drying in large clumps from front doors and windows, breaking the monotony of brown wood and white clay. Wizened old ladies sat on street benches, probably chatting about the wizened old men who stood staring from storefront doors. The mountains rolled out on either side of us, the leaves just beginning to turn golden. What a different world from the grey streets of ...