Bulgaria for a week! Here’s my story… (Part 1)
I traveled around Bulgaria for a week and here’s what happened!
This summer I decided to travel around my country. I felt very lost and very unmotivated about everything. I though I could find myself while being on the road. So for 10 days I was in 8 cities in Bulgaria — Karlovo, Plovdiv, Stara Zagora, Bourgas, Sozopol, Nesebar, Varna and Veliko Turnovo. Traveling mostly by train, I did this adventure in September 2013 with my best friend and most precious person in my life. I’m happy and kinda proud of myself!
We had limited time in each city so we tried to take the best out of every place.So here’s my road story…
1.Karlovo
We took the train early in the morning and we ended up in Karlovo. This is a town in central Bulgaria. It is located in a fertile valley where roses are grown. Karlovo is mostly famous for the worldwide-known rose oil used for producing expensive parfumes and cosmetics. We stayed one night in a nice hotel. The city is note very big.
The other important thing is that Karlovo is the birth place of Vasil Levski — the most distinguished Bulgarian to start preparing the national liberation from the Ottoman rule in the late 19th century. We visited the birth house of the Apostle, which is now a museum. There’s a monument of Vasil Levski in the center of the city. Here are some photos from Karlovo:
2. Plovdiv
The day after Karlovo we headed to Plovdiv. We took the train at 5 o’clock!!! Crazy!
Plovdiv is the second largest city in Bulgaria. It’s a place with ancient history. There are more than 200 archaeological sites, many remains from the antiquity… in one word — there’s a lot to see! We visited The Ancient Theater (it was national holiday so we saw it for free, otherwise it would cost us 6 leva or 3 euro), walked trough the Old town with beautiful houses, churches and narrow paved streets, saw the modern center and so on. We spend less than a day in Plovdiv but our time was more than awesome.
3. Stara Zagora
At around 5 pm we took the train for Stara Zagora. We were going to stay at my aunt’s house for the night. We arrived in the evening so we decided to go straight to bed. Before that my aunt’s family prepared dinner. This is the place where I tried cooked pig ears for the first time (and last for sure).
The next day we were prepared for a long walk around the city before we leave. We visited the Zagorka lake, the center of the city, the famous park “Ayazmoto” and the zoo (where I ruined my jeans and had to cover the big resin spot with my bag for the whole day). We also visited the famous Hall of Laugh where you see yourself in huge distorted mirrors. We had a lot of fun there! There’s a lot to see in Stara Zagora. If you give it a shot, you won’t regret it!At the end of the day we were exhausted.We were ready for a time out. We found it at the next point of our journey — Bourgas.
4. Bourgas
We finally made it to the sea! In my opinion, Bourgas is one of the most beautiful cities in Bulgaria. We arrived around 6 pm, bought some dinner from the supermarket and went out for a walk in the city center alley. It was crowded but the atmosphere was delightful.
On the next day we went for a walk in the sea garden — very beautiful place. At the same time we were in Bourgas there was a Sand sculptures festival so that happened! We bought some souvenirs and at 2 pm we headed to the bus station for our next stop… SOZOPOL! We were going to stay 2 nights there…
