first stop Sofia, Bulgaria

Why Bulgaria??

Not because it was top of my wishlist of places to visit, but for the more practical reason that I have an organised tour already booked and paid for in Lebanon in August, so it made sense to start out somewhere not too far from there.  Istanbul-Beirut flights were reasonable value, so I purchased one of those, but having already been to Turkey three times, and foreseeing a month there between trips later this year, I decided to start off in Bulgaria: a new country for me, cheap, and an easy bus ride from Istanbul, so why not?

A London-Sofia bus would have been the cheapest way to get there, but Covid requirements in some European countries still posed a risk for me, as my Senegalese vaccination certificate is not universally recognised, so I flew.  Nervously, with all that is going on at European airports, but thankfully without incident as both myself and my luggage arrived together, as scheduled.  Then my first trip on the Sofia metro, to get the hostel I had pre-booked for the first couple of nights.

Being naturally cautious about money, I had of course booked myself a bed in a dorm in the cheapest hostel in Sofia - and this sight greeting me as I entered the building showed me what to expect!!  The place has been 'under renovation' on and off for at least two years, has no locks on most of the toilet doors, a fridge that doesn't really shut properly, broken floor tiles throughout, a bare bit of wall where one of the sinks used to be, very squeaky bunk beds - and most importantly, no locks on the lockers!!  Important when you are travelling with a laptop, camera, phone, binoculars, passport, cash, credit cards, etc.  Thankfully there are in fact four lockers that work, between the 120-odd beds in the hostel, and I just happened to be staying in the dorm that had those four lockers!!  All for £6.50 a night...

I'm with a changing cast of room-mates, so far with people from the UK, Portugal, Malta, Colombia and Venezuela, and some of them keep very different hours from me.  They are all nice people though, and don't seem too fazed by the presence of an old lady amongst them.

So I've walked a lot around Sofia, visited numerous churches, galleries and museums, seen the changing of the guard, joined a very interesting three-hour walking tour of communist Sofia - and been in and out of Lidl to buy supplies!  It's a great city to be based in for a while.  Probably the greenest city I've ever seen, with trees along many streets and parks all over the place.  Lots of street art / graffiti too - it all looks a bit run down - but it feels safe.  & I haven't been partying in the evenings so not needing to worry about whether or not it is safe to go out at night.

I've also taken a few day trips out of the centre, including one to the UNESCO-listed Boyana Church and Rila Monastery.  No photographs allowed inside either, which would show why they are UNESCO-listed, but in this pic of the church in Rila Monastery you can see the frescoes under the arches, at least.

My other trips were driven by two room-mates, both to places I probably wouldn't have bothered to go to had they not suggested it, but they were good company and it was nice be with 'friends' for a couple of days.  That being one of the areas I still have questions about ... yes, I'm quite self-contained, but will I get lonely being a nomad?  Not a problem so far, but then Bulgaria is a popular place for nomads to go.