So England ended up losing 2-1 because Croatia scored a goal in extra time. This is probably for the best though, because now I won’t feel tempted to get up at 4am on Monday for the final when I should be sleeping before work!!
The six of us did have a really nice dinner even though the soccer didn’t go our way. We enjoyed nice food and wine, and ended up heading back to the hotel at 11pm after a quick ice cream to get rid of our last few Macedonian coins.
This morning we had breakfast and then said goodbye to over half the people from our tour. Well, said good bye to some of them. Some of them I still didn’t know, and some of the ones I did know of I’m very glad I don’t have to see again haha. Some people left completely, others were heading off on another part of the tour to Greece, and some like us were heading to Sofia, Bulgaria.
On our half full bus, the 22 of us heading to Sofia had lots of space and a double seat each. We had a bit of a scare when a couple from NZ thought their passports had been left at the hotel, but they found them eventually and on we went. The border crossing didn’t take too long.
On the bus, Tanja got us to fill in a review about the tour. There is so much to write that I’ve actually typed up a huge note to post on the Travel Talk Facebook page tonight because I wouldn’t have enough room on paper. I don’t expect anything in return, but they need to fix up the itinerary and the best way to do that is from feedback. Tanja and Naya really did try their best. I feel Travel Talk let us down and let them down by changing the itinerary last minute and creating tension.
At 120 000 km squared, Bulgaria is one of the largest countries on the Balkan Peninsula. 70% of the country is mountainous. The reason this region is called the Balkans is because of the Balkan mountain range that passes through Bulgaria and a few other countries. It is 500km long. Apparently lots of Europeans come here to buy cheap second hand cars.
The bus stopped in the city for a walking tour, but Mum, Caroline, Sarah and I left the tour to check in to our hotels because after the journey here and the time going an hour forward, it was already 4pm. Initially we had booked the tour hotel but once we realised how far out of town it was, we booked our own. It was an awkward goodbye to Tanja who kept apologising for the stuff ups on tour, and no one else from the group that was left really said good bye to us. Strangest tour group I’ve ever been a part of!!
Our hotel is very central, quiet and unlike the tour hotels has fantastic air conditioning. Hooray!
At 6pm, the four of us joined the Sofia free walking tour. Our guide’s name was Slavya. As you’re reading this, you probably read ‘Sofia’ as we do with the girls’ name at home. But for the city name, you have to put the emphasis on the start of the word. Almost like saying “SOF-ya”. There has been life here for 6000 years, and the city is like one huge archaeological dig. The romans created a town here called ‘Serdica’, of which there are still many ruins here today. In fact the central train station took ten years to build because they hit so many ruins! It now centres around an exhibition about Serdica which we are planning on looking at tomorrow. The Roman road from Belgrade to Constantinople passed through here.
We first passed the church called Sveta Nedelya which had to be rebuilt after 1925, because of an event taking place much like the end of ‘Game of Thrones’ season 6. If you’re not up to it - skip this paragraph!! The communists were not a fan of King Boris the third (more on him later). They killed a general so that a funeral would be held in this church, then bribed someone so they could put explosives underneath the church. The funeral began, the church blew up and 200 ministers and generals inside died while 500 were injured. However, in true Balkan style, the king remained unscathed because he was 15 minutes late!
Despite the many beautiful churches here, Bulgarians are mostly non religious due to the suppression of religion during the communist period here.
The Ottomans ruled here for about 500 years until 1878 when the Russians liberated Bulgaria. Our next stop was the Banya Bashi Mosque. Originally there were quite a lot of mosques here, but at the end of the Ottoman rule, most muslims left so now this is the only mosque remaining in Sofia. There are 7 million people in Bulgaria, with 4 million of them living in Sofia. Today only 10 000 of these Sofia residents are Muslim.
In the same square there was also a synagogue, a Catholic Church and the aforementioned Orthodox Church. Because of so many religions coming together this is often called the ‘Square of Tolerance’. Bulgaria reluctantly sided with Germany during World War II, but were the only country to do so that stood up to the Nazis when they wanted to send the Jewish population to concentration camps. The first time, the locals bombed the train tracks to stop the trains. Then, there was a huge protest. Then, a religious leader stood on the tracks and said “over my dead body are you taking these people away!” Our guide said he was very proud of this defiance that delayed Jewish people being sent to death camps. There used to be 50 000 Jewish people living here. Now there are only 5000. Many fled to Israel because they feared they would be persecuted again.
Then we went to a spring. There are 40 hot water springs in the Sofia area alone, with supposed cardiological and other benefits. The water was 38 degrees Celsius due to volcanic activity under the city. We were glad we didn’t fill our bottles as it was still 30 degrees outside at 6.30pm!
We passed the president’s office, outside of which the old king’s guard stood in what looked like a very hot uniform for summer. Inside the courtyard here was Saint George’s Church, a Church from the fourth century that is the oldest preserved in Bulgaria. Here we saw an example of the first central heating system used by the Romans, with columns letting off heat into a hollow underground part to keep the floor heated.
We then stopped outside the Palace, which is now the National Art Gallery. Here our guide made a few people take part in a play to tell us the history of royals here! In 1878 when the Russians liberated Bulgaria from the Ottomans, there was no royal blood left in Bulgaria. They imported Alexander of Battenburg from Germany to be their king. He ruled OK for a while, but then had fights with Russia so they got an Austrian king instead. He was very absent minded, so to distract the people from his distracted leadership, he married an Italian princess. They then had the first “pure bred” Bulgarian king (not really - they were Austrian and Italian!) who was King Boris III, the one the communists tried to kill. Suspiciously, three days after meeting with Hitler he died in his sleep. Then his son became King Simeon II who was only six years old. The communists overthrew him and exhaled him to Spain. Once the Berlin Wall fell in 1989 and Bulgaria eventually gained its independence, Simeon returned and became prime minister. Ironically, he then proceeded to make a coalition with some of the communists.
We saw some yellow bricks from Hungary that apparently the government paid a lot of money for. Many of the older generation still believe the lie that they were a gift for the royal wedding between the Austrian and Italian. However, it came out 80 years later that the price for them was so huge, Bulgaria is still paying them off today.
We saw the St Nicholas Russian Church, then the Hagia Sofia Church. This is where the city gets its name, because Hagia Sofia means ‘Holy Wisdom of God’. Back when this was a Roman town, this church was on the outside of the walls. When people approached Serdica they would say “we are nearly at Sofia”.
Our final stop was the Alexander Nevsky Cathedral, built as a thanks to the Russians for the liberation in the war of 1878. It’s the biggest church in Bulgaria, and was the largest in the Balkans until St Sava was built in Belgrade.
Then the four of us had a quick rest before heading to a restaurant someone on our tour had recommended. Along the way we checked out more streets, squares and parks. We went souvenir shopping and ended up on a nice pedestrianised street. We had to make a reservation on a list at the restaurant, but once we got in after 30 minutes it was worth it.
We had beautiful wine, bread and lovely dips and then shared a platter of traditional Bulgarian meats. It was incredible! The best part was that it ended up being $22 Aussie each. We said good bye to Caroline and Sarah. They are both so lovely and we are all very like minded. Both are from Melbourne with Sarah currently living in London, but’s she’s coming home for Christmas so we are planning on catching up then.
One more post tomorrow before we head home!
Love to all
Claire
Xoxox
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