This will be a fairly short one folks as I’m going to split our time in Bulgaria into two posts. This one focusing on our 6 days spent in the capital, Sofia and the next instalment which will detail our experiences at our very first ‘worldschool hub’. Our last blog saw us getting ready to leave relative sunshine and warmth for something that all of us had been longing for, for quite a while. A winter with true cold and guaranteed snow… The predictably grey, wet and snowless winters of Cornwall are one of the reasons we upped sticks and left in the first place. The journey from Cyprus to Bulgaria is a few hours by plane and we were ready with a fleece and thermal base layer to see us though that first day.
International Postcode Lottery
With travelling as lightly as we do, switching climates was always going to be a tricky thing to navigate. There were numerous ways we could have done it, but we opted for buying a load of ski and snow gear second hand in the UK before we left, and boxing it up to post to Bulgaria. Luckily, we had picked an Airbnb in Sofia with an exceptional host who said we could send it to her address and she would store it for a few months until we finally got to the Bulgaria leg of our journey. Yes, we could have bought snow gear in Sofia, but that would have meant spending our entire time there shopping for winter clothes… whilst shivering in summer clothes, not exactly our idea of fun. Also, our plan meant that we knew we had exactly what we needed… and it all fitted us.
Genius I hear you cry… Well, it would have been if it didn’t rely on the British and Bulgarian postal service working in anything like tandem. They do not. Our parcel left the UK (via our good friend Ryan in Tonbridge Wells.Thank you for tediously unpacking,removing,labelling and re-packing every item to satisfy customs) with what we thought was all due postages paid and arrived in Bulgaria in decent time… However, Bulgarian customs wouldn’t release it without significant extra duties being paid. Step up Milena, our Airbnb host in Sofia. She dealt with it all for us superbly and without her, we’d have never have recieved that parcel in time.
First impressions – Just shout a bit louder and I’m sure we’ll understand!?
This wasn’t the only incident that Milena had to help us with on arrival in Bulgaria either. We’d managed to collect our hire car and navigate through a pretty busy Sofia to the car park she had told us to use during our stay, however on reaching it we were met with a rather rotund elderly Bulgarian car park attendant who basically began shouting at us in Bulgarian. It reminded me of that typical British tourist trope, that if I only shout louder and slower somehow the foreigner on the other end will understand me. Except we weren’t a Lobster-red Gammon in Marbella asking for directions to the nearest Lager dispensary, we were the ones expected to suddenly comprehend Bulgarian through ever increasing volume and speed… We were incredibly confused, and he was getting more and more irate the more we tried to establish just what it was we’d done wrong. Through a combination of google translate and persistence, we understood he was telling us that rental cars weren’t allowed to park in said car park… Bizarre eh? So we rang up Milena and told her we’d need to find somewhere else to park for our stay. Cue her asking to be put on the phone to the fat, angry man stood in front of us and our car. Five minutes on the phone to Milena and he was ushering us into a parking space and accepting our thanks! I don’t know what she said, frankly I don’t care… But suddenly his apparent rule about rental cars in his car park was null and void. It was an encapsulation of what we would come to accept was the way of Bulgarian people in general. Milena playing the Yin to the angry car park man Yang. On the one hand, a wonderfully warm and generous people who will go out of their way to help and welcome you, on the other; a people with a fiery temperament who have no problem telling you if they think you’re doing something wrong. A rare combo, and one we’d come to know this very well over the next 6 weeks.
Aaaaand Relax
After all of that stress we were glad to arrive in somewhere with really good Wi-Fi and sit down for a well deserved family movie night in a beautiful and peaceful apartment. We’d not had consistent Wi-Fi so far in our trip, and to be honest, it hadn’t been much of an issue, other than making blog writing a bit challenging!
Sweetie Graffiti
One thing that is instantly noticeable about Sofia is the graffiti.There are numerous murals dotted around the city and some of them are pretty spectacular. We really got a sense of a thriving and vibrant art scene which was an interesting juxtaposition to the majority of Soviet era architecture.
We also spent some time wandering along the famous Vitosha Boulevard, the highlight being (for the kids at least) the Epic Hansel and Gretal sweet shop. Shopping is not really our thing, but everyone enjoys a good sweet shop, right?
Bulgarian public transport for the win!
We quickly felt comfortable in Sofia, it is a city which we found so easy to get around and explore safely. A primary reason for this was the absolutely brilliant public transport system. The metro was easily the cleanest and most efficient I’ve had the fortune to use. The buses were also easy, comfortable and reliable. The best thing about both of these systems was the cost. A mere 1.60lv (70p) could get you anywhere you wanted in the city. Also, the tickets were timed so you could switch lines etc within the same journey for no additional cost. It was really refreshing as an English person, to be able to relax and enjoy public transport without wondering which bodily organ you’d need to sell just to catch a train!
A New Years Day to remember
Being in Sofia for New Years was certainly different. The evening involved a serious amount of good natured explosives, I’ve never heard so many fireworks being let off in the street. If it wasn’t accompanied by the sounds of so much laughter and merriment it would have certainly had more of the feel of a full scale street battle being waged outside! Despite all this evening chaos we’d been given a tip to look elsewhere for New Years Day celebrations… I can only assume the whole of Sofia has a mass headache from all the gunpowder fumes the night before. So we’d been told to head to the town of Bansko where there was a large, traditional New Years parade involving the Kukeri. This was of double fortune as it happened to be the location of our next long term stop, so we got the chance to scout out the surroundings a bit before moving there in a few days. Kukeri are a tradition where Bulgarian men dress in giant and elaborate costumes made of several goat skins; they drink, dance and drum for several days solidliy with the intention of warding away evil spirits and giving health and happiness to the village for the coming year. The tradition is thought to predate Christianity and actually be of Thracian/Pagan origin. Whatever the ancient history, it is still a thriving and vibrant tradition which is truly unique to this part of the world. We felt very fortunate to be here at this time to witness it and it’s the most memorable New Years that I can..er… remember.
Eating and drinking like kings
One of the best things we quickly discovered about Bulgaria is that food and drink is very cheap, for Europe, and very good. Even the cheapest local beer was very good and you could get draft pints of craft beer for the same price as cans in the supermarket back home. Both me and Nikki definitely enjoyed this, whilst maintaining a level of adult responsibility… obviously.
We also found what is now possibly our favourite ever family restaurant. The superb ‘Happy Bar and Grill’. There are several of these in Sofia and they cater for families exactly like ours… The kind where the 4 members therein want 4 different meals! One of you wants steak, but another wants Sushi? The third asks for pasta and the final awkward sod wants Greek Salad… sound familiar? Well, at Happy Bar its no problem, they do it all, they do it well and best of all cheap! Plus the kids can order colour changing kids cocktails, complete with candy floss! By the end of the meal everyone feels like they’ve been thoroughly spoilt and you’ve spent less than half the price of an equivalent meal out back home. What’s not to like?
Out and about finding things to do
Sofia, like a lot of cities, has a ton of potential days out. We always tend toward interactive and educational things for the kids mixed with whatever parks or outdoor recreation areas are on offer. We were lucky enough to find probably the best kids museum we’ve visited yet in the Muzeiko. This is a fully iteractive kids science museum split across 3 levels – past, present and future. It was great for our age kids (5 & 7) and we all thouroughly enjoyed it.
During our time in Sofia we also had a perfect introduction to our Bulgarian ‘raison d’etre’ as Sofia had a healthy amount of snowfall overnight during our stay. So we spent the whole day in one of the local parks giving all that snow gear a thorough test with some epic snowball fights and a goodly amount of sledging. This was Senaras’ first time ever experiencing snow and she approached it with her usual wild enthusiasm. It was a genuinely lovely thing to see and was a notably lovely family moment… Until I accidentally caught Nikki square in the face with a hard thrown snowball! She didn’t talk to me for sometime (which isn’t unusual to be honest), and not until I’d let her openly return fire with numerous snowy projectiles.
Even a great city, is still a city to a country loving bumpkin
So(fia) it was time to pack up again and head out of the city and away toward the mountain ski town of Bansko, and a 6 week long worldschooling hub. We always leave cities with the feeling of there being so much more that we could see or do next time, but equally being confirmed in our knowledge that we truly aren’t city people, long term. Sofia is a beautiful and easy city to enjoy and one that is definitely worthy of a second visit, at the same time all of our hearts end up yearning for a lack of hustle and bustle and a definite injection of nature. So it was, we awoke early to a dense freezing fog which we’d be crawling through on our way out of the city and onward to our white winter immersion.
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