Saturday, February 24, 2007

Bulgaria: Day 1

Riding a bear in a communist era park full of scultptures in Plovdiv, Bulgaria

Since we left our trek early, we decided to go on a mostly unplanned trip to Bulgaria and Greece. Armed with several Lonely Planet travel guides, we jumped on the 10 pm night train from Istanbul to Plovdiv, Bulgaria - it's second largest city. We passed the night asleep in a bunk cabin with only a 2 hour stop at the borders at 3 am, which was largely unremarkable (no smugglers or drugs this time).

We got to Plovdiv around 8 in the morning, and set off for the bus station. Well - Plovdiv has three bus stations, and I guess I was a little tired when I was reading about them because we ended up wandering around for two hours looking for bus stations. We passed the one we unknowingly wanted in our first 10 minutes, and spent the rest of the two hours criss-crossing rail road tracks and back-tracking.

We finally managed to buy bus tickets to Bansko, a Bulgarian town about 3 hours away nestled at the base of a ski resort. After a few hours wandering around old Plovdiv checking out more Roman ruins and things left over from the Soviets, we jumped on our bus and went to Bansko - a largely unremarkable town with a fair bit of air pollution.

Traditional Bulgarian dinner, Bansko, Bulgaria

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