Not all who wander are lost
After a great day mostly on our own in Sophia, we were sad to leave but leave we must – onward to North Macedonia and Skopje, via Rila Monastery! We had a light breakfast since it was not great at the Grand Hotel Sophia, and quite frankly we were glad to leave given how old…
The next morning in Sofia, we had a meh breakfast at the hotel and then headed out into the city and met our guide Reina. Firstly, Reina taught us how to pronounce the name of the city, Sofia, which was more SOH-fee-uh than the Americanized Soh-FEE-uh. Our first stop in Sofia was at the Ivan…
For our morning tour of Plovdiv, Bulgaria, we checked out of the Radisson and then ate breakfast at the hotel buffet, which featured a tremendous dessert spread, and giant cupcakes. We did not partake, as it was too early for that amount of sweets, but we ate then with our eyes. A quick bus ride…
After our considerable time in Romania, we were eager to see our next country on the trip, Bulgaria, starting with the village of Veliko Tarnovo in the morning, and then on to Plovdiv in the afternoon. Breakfast was early and we somewhat forced ourselves to eat, not knowing what lunch might hold (more meat stew…
Our second full day with Gate 1 consisted of a Bucharest walking tour with a focus on the Romanian Revolution, followed by a field trip to the Romanian Parliament building and a visit to a village museum. The days with Gate 1 followed a pattern of travel days where we were moving between hotel locations…
For our first full day with our Gate 1 tour group, we drove back to the Carpathian mountains to visit Sinaia and Peles Castle, about 1/2 of the distance we had just traveled to Brasov. Now it was time for us to turn off our logistic brains and focus on learning and deeper history. The…
