Bill and Lynne Grand Tour

The Russian Church
We set off by bus in the dark from Athens and had our first stop a couple of hours later and thought it all very civilized as we had time for a drink and loo stop but things went downhill from then on. When we did stop to drop off or collect other passengers the stop was either too short or you had to go through full security with bag searches and x-rays, except between the Greek and Athens borders where a long stop was made at the duty free shop (no loos there though - this was shopping time). All the Bulgarians were loaded with liquor which they managed to consume quite quickly so after that there were frantic calls to the driver for him to pause in the middle of nowhere for some happy guy to disappear behind a bush. The road became progressively worse as we neared Sofia and the last 20 km was so bad that some major part under the bus broke with impressive bangs and bashes. The bus continued at 5 kph and we limped into the city until it finally died at a busy traffic circle. As we speak no Bulgarian, we were never sure what was happening but were lucky enough to discover that one of the passengers worked at the US Embassy and spoke very good English, found us an ATM and a cab and headed us in the direction of our hotel.

Sofia is an incredible mixture of the drabness of blocks and blocks of depressing communist-style apartments and the most upmarket shopping mall - TZUM, brand new bus station, many lavish churches and cathedrals and a very modern market complete with fast food. We found a self-serve restaurant in the basement serving Bulgarian food and with tables among Roman ruins. There are more McDonalds and KFCs per block than I have seen in any major city in the world. The infrastructure is minimal - wonderful green spaces, but with knee-high grass and, of course, the potholes in the streets. The EU already has road-construction projects going so everyone hopes that when Bulgaria joins the European Union in 2007, things will be better.


Roman ruins

During the Turkish occupation, no Christian churches were allowed to be built above ground so we enjoyed the subways which have been built to get pedestrians across busy thoroughfares. There is often a little mediaeval church or 15th century ruin in the center. Farther out on the outskirts however, none of the lights is working so we could never see what was being preserved under the streets. Parking is at a premium so the Sofians have solved it by parking on the sidewalks which means pedestrians have to walk in the street which can be very hazardous to your health as most of the drivers claim definite right-of-way.

At noon one day the sirens went off for a full minute and everyone froze on the spot, cars stopped and there was no other sound to be heard. Luckily, we were already sitting down in the shade in the square so did not embarrass ourselves as it was obviously a very special time. When the sirens stopped, everyone continued on as if nothing had happened. It was rather like the childhood game of statues, we used to play and even seeing it on the local news that night, did not clarify the occasion.

They were holding a childrens festival outside the National Theater in the park we walked through each time we left the hotel. It was fun to see kids from post- toddler to late teens doing their folk dances or playing in the latest heavy metal bands and singing in English. MTV is doing more for the global village than anything else we have seen. Bulgaria is trying to encourage tourists and the kids are leading the way. We found almost every teenager serving in the restaurants or selling at the stalls could speak enough for us to manage. The Bulgarian alphabet is different even from the Greek, with which we had become quite familiar. Finding the correct streets was a challenge as so many of the letters have no relationship to our alphabet. It takes time to translate P to R, N to I, X to H etc etc. We spent a lot of time on street corners gazing at the street names.


Bulgarian road sign

We ended up staying in Sofia and not taking any of the tours outside the city as planned, feeling a little insecure about whether the buses would make it in time for us to get back to Athens to catch our flight and tour in Malta. No hardship however as there were fascinating walks through the major buildings and statues and decorations on every important place.