louiseinlimbo

As well as the 'formal' ruins, Bulgaria has countless abandoned houses, factories and other buildings. In Veliko Tarnovo I poked around three different abandoned places.  The first was a Soviet-era dam, intended to raise the level of the river so that residents of the town could swim in it, but not yet completed at the time of the fall of communism.  The kind of place that would be safely closed off to random passers-by in somewhere like the UK, but just left in Bulgaria for people like me, who are fascinated by abandoned places, to go into at my own risk. The second I only found thanks to a conversation with a friend of the hostel manager, as I would otherwise have just walked past without realising what was there.  Would your attention be drawn to this building on the right if you walked past it? I'd been told that down by the river there was an old Roman baths, later used as a hammam by the Ottomans, which had fallen into disrepair and even been used for a while by a sma

I've remarked already that one of the things I've learned about travelling is how my interactions with fellow travellers can be just as enjoyable as my visits to see new sights.  So I was very happy when these two elements came together for a day in Bulgaria when a Polish lady staying in my dorm decided to hire a car for a day and invited three of us to join her. The pic above was taken at our first stop, the Sokolski Monastery, which featured the usual colourful frescoes around and inside the chapel, then we visited the Dryanovo Monastery, and then Etar, a traditional (and very pretty) village.  After this came the main stop of the day for me - the Buzludzha Monument. This was built over the years 1974 to 1981 by some 6,000 workers (mostly military) and financed by public donations, on the site of the final battle, in 1868, between Bulgarian rebels and the Ottoman Empire.  Then in 1891 a group of socialists assembled here to form the Bulgarian Social Democratic Party, which wa

After a long train ride from Brasov, I arrived at Gorna Oryahovitsa in Bulgaria, a town some 12km from Veliko Tarnovo, where I was heading, with no idea how I was to complete the journey except that I'd been warned to avoid the rip-off taxis.  But as ever in this part of the world, in my experience so far, things just work out.  A bus pulled up in front of the station and I asked if they were going to Veliko Tarnovo - yes, they were!  & as we pulled into the town, another passenger indicated to me in sign language where I should get off and in which direction I should walk. Veliko Tarnovo was beautiful (the two photos above looking in different directions from the town, both viewpoints only a short walk from my hostel) and the hostel was really nice with a terrace and garden as well as a really helpful manager.  It became the capital of Bulgaria in the twelfth century, until 1879 when a decision was made to transfer this status to Sofia. I have to admit to having been a little

As there was a night bus going directly from Chisinau to Plovdiv, without having to navigate Bucharest, I thought I would stop off there for a few days on my way back to Bulgaria.  It's a very pretty town, which I wandered around taking photos of the old houses, the remaining bits of city wall, and a few other attractive buildings such as this one to the left, and I also did a steep hike up the mountain that overlooked the town, zooming in to take the photo above of the main 'square' in the old town. But it all felt extremely touristy and I didn't really enjoy it as much as I had my time in Chisinau. One of the reasons for stopping there was to visit one of the famous Transylvania castles.  I was told that most people who visited Bran Castle ('dracula's castle') were disappointed, and that Peles Castle was much better, so I worked out how to get to the train station and took myself off to Peles Castle for a day, with a couple of other guests from my hostel.

I hung around in Sofia for a couple more days, as I enjoyed the vibe in the hostel and was having some interesting conversations with fellow travellers there - and it was cheap!  But then I started to feel guilty that I wasn't 'achieving' anything, and so I decided to pay a visit to Moldova.  This involved an overnight bus from Sofia to Bucharest, a taxi across the city to a different bus station, and then an all-day trip to the capital, Chisinau.  With a half-hour walk at each end, which reminded me again that I really have brought too much stuff with me. I really hadn't a clue what to expect of Chisinau, but I liked the feel of the place, and the hostel was nice, so when I woke the first morning I asked to extend my stay. It was a relaxed kind of place, with virtually no tourists (nearly all of the other guests at the hostel were Ukrainians or Russians - there to avoid the war - and one American wanting to go and support the Ukrainians), and it was easy to walk around