The travels of Tim and Megan: Bulgaria

Monday

On 22 August, we arrived in Varna after a 9-hour bus ride from Istanbul and we caught a taxi to our hotel, a basic but nice enough place called Hotel Colour. Our room had a TV with loads of channels, an excellent air conditioning unit, a little fridge and a good bathroom, so we were pretty happy. The young guy on reception spoke very good English and was extremely helpful.

After settling in and showering, we got a taxi down to the beach, where we had a drink and some dinner at one of the many restaurants facing on to the beach. It was a lovely warm evening and the food was pretty good.

Bulgaria is a country in south-east Europe, which borders Romania to the north, Serbia and Macedonia to the west and Greece and Turkey to the south. The Black Sea runs along the eastern side of the country. The capital and largest city is Sofia, the official language is Bulgarian and the population is roughly 7.5 million people. Varna is the third largest city in Bulgaria and the largest city and seaside resort on the Black Sea coast, with around 350,000 people.

Tuesday

After a big and much needed sleep in, we got sorted and headed out to get some breakfast. We found a great little bakery near our hotel, where we got a massive slice of pizza and some fresh bread (the food in Bulgaria is delicious, but rather bread and meat based). We carried on in to the town centre, stopping in at the brilliantly named "Dormition of the Theotokos Cathedral". The cathedral is a beautiful building that dominates the city centre with its onion-like domes shimmering in the sunlight. It is a Bulgarian Orthodox church and it is decorated majestically inside too. We also visited the tourist information centre, where we discussed options for travelling to Romania, and then we walked through town to the beach.

It was a beautiful hot sunny day (about 28 to 30 degrees) and the sand and sea looked amazing. We hired some beach loungers and an umbrella and pretty much did not move again for six hours. We had a short break for lunch at one of the beach restaurants, where we enjoyed a large beer for about 80 pence, meatballs and fries for Tim and a shrimp salad (with a lack of salad) for Megan. The beach was full of very, very tanned people - the women almost all topless, the men largely pot-bellied. There was also a lot of beach volleyball going on - it appeared to be a big sport in Bulgaria and there were plenty of energetic young Bulgarians keen to play.

In the evening we headed back to the hotel for showers before venturing into town for dinner at a great place called Happy Bar and Grill, which does all sorts of grilled meat, burgers and even sushi! Megan was delighted to be reunited with sushi again and Tim opted for grilled chicken and fries. On the way back to the hotel, we got an ice-cream for dessert. We enjoyed wandering through town, looking at all the crazy Bulgarian writing on signs (they use the Cyrillic alphabet).

Wednesday

A familiar pattern began to emerge during our stay in Bulgaria. We had another sleep-in, left the hotel and got breakfast from the little bakery near our hotel. This time, however, we took a detour by taxi to the main bus station to book tickets to Romania. The taxi driver was a complete loser (it seemed there were two types of taxi drivers in Bulgaria - the nice, honest sort and the complete arsehole sort) and it seemed to be a 50-50 chance as to which sort we got.

On this occasion the guy tried to rip us off massively. We had a two-minute taxi ride that was about 1.5km long. This should have cost something like 2-3 leva and the guy tried to charge 10 leva. Megs went to town on him, telling him exactly what she thought of him and that he had let his country down. We gave him 5 leva and Megs slammed his door so hard it nearly fell off. Quite amusing.

Getting information at the bus station was like trying to get blood out of a stone. As we had discovered in Istanbul, certain travel agents are affiliated to only one or two bus companies, which travel only to one or two destinations. As we cannot read Bulgarian too well, we had to visit each of the 50-odd travel agent offices at the bus station and ask if they travel to Romania. None of them did. They would all shake their head and point to the next office, where someone would then do the same. Eventually after about half an hour, we managed to buy bus tickets to Ruse, which is a Bulgarian city pretty much on the Romanian border only 75km from Bucharest. We were told we could then change buses at Ruse and travel into Romania. So we settled for that, bought tickets to Ruse for Saturday and then got a taxi to the beach.

The rest of the day was spent at the beach, lazing in the perfect sun and occasionally drinking a large, cold and extremely cheap beer. We again had lunch at a beach restaurant to break up the monotony of lying in the sun (te he he). The evening was a replica of the day before...left the beach around 6pm, showered and changed and walked to town to have a delicious dinner at Happy Bar and Grill. We love Bulgaria!

Thursday

On Thursday morning we surprisingly got breakfast from the little bakery near our hotel, but then we mixed things up completely, by negotiating a taxi ride 18km out of Varna to the west to visit the strange natural phenomenon that is the Stone Forest. Our taxi driver drove us there and back and waited for 20 minutes while we looked around (total trip of an hour) and charged us 40 leva (which shows how ridiculous the guy from the day before had been trying to get 10 leva out of us)!

The Stone Forest (known as Pobiti Kamani) consists of several groups of rock formations on a total area of 70 sq km. The formations are mainly stone columns around 5 to 7 metres high and ranging from 0.3 to 3 metres thick. The stones are believed to have been created from coral activity under the sea and are thought to be over 50 million years old. Woah! We enjoyed checking out the rocks and taking some photos, although it was pretty hot out there. Our taxi driver dropped us back in Varna at the beach and normal service resumed - rest of day was spent lying on the beach, paddling in the sea a little and eating and drinking delicious cheap food and drink.

In the evening, Megs was not feeling very well, so she had a rest at the hotel while Tim found an internet cafe and did a bit of blogging and picked up some takeaway pizza for dinner. As had been the case in Istanbul too, there were a lot of stray cats roaming the streets of Varna. Varna looked quite poor and run down in parts, which is not entirely surprising. There were a lot of big apartment blocks that looked really shabby. But the city centre and the shops and restaurants etc looked very clean and well kept.

Friday

Our last full day in Bulgaria was fairly predictable. We picked up some breakfast on our way into town and we checked out a few shops and some different streets we had not seen yet. We returned to the internet cafe and finished off some blogging and caught up with what was happening in the world. The internet was crazily cheap. We also got some stamps and sent a couple of postcards to NZ and Megan got the obligatory fridge magnet to add to her collection!

Then it was down to the beach for our last day of bliss. Actually it was a little windy at the beach on Friday. Still hot and sunny, but the water was a little rough. On the way home from the beach in the evening, we stopped in at a great little cafe where we had delcious cakes and chocolate milkshakes. Then we chilled out at the hotel, packed up all of our things, and then went out for some dinner. Dinner was a little disappointing (we tried a different place and it was below average - should have stuck with Happy Bar and Grill).

Saturday

On Saturday morning, we headed to the bus station and caught our bus to Ruse, in the north of Bulgaria. The three hour bus ride raced by and was very comfortable. But when we arrived at Ruse, we were told there were no more buses to Romania at all that day. It turned out the only way to get to Romania was by taxi. We negotiated a 50 euro taxi ride from Ruse to Bucharest, which was quite reasonable. Despite being just 75km away, it took almost two hours due to the border crossing and a toll bridge with long queues.

The taxi driver was really nice and dropped us off in Bucharest at the Gare de Nord train station. He commented as we were crossing the border that Romanians are terrible drivers and also bad people. He got the first bit right - we saw three crashes while driving through Bucharest! We really enjoyed our time in Bulgaria. It was fantastic to have a few days of chilling out in one place after a lot of travelling around. Next up, Romania!