Entries about hostel

After resting a while in our room after our Mount Vitosha excursion, we headed out to the Archaeological Museum, because Dave hadn't been before at all and I hadn't been since October so I wanted to see if a) the wonderful Thracian treasure troves were still there and b) if the temporary exhibition had changed. We went there via the amazing pizza place and also the Rotonda Church of St George.

It was very interesting for me to get another look at everything, and Dave was impressed by the Thracian treasure in particular. At first we thought the Thracian treasure room was closed off, but then we realised that although the door was closed, people were actually still allowed in. I couldn't get over how amazing a lot of the craftsmanship was. The burial masks, helmets, jewellery, drinking horns, wreaths of almost paper-thin gold leaves... just absolutely stunning.

The temporary exhibition room now had an interesting exhibition of the finds from a Roman Thracian villa. It included two of the finest pieces of Roman glassware ever found (according to the blurb - they did indeed look very fine), plus an assortment of other things; an extraordinarily well preserved and engraved helmet, a stone with a carving of a Thracian Horseman, some coins, metal tools and other household objects.

We headed back to the main part of the hostel then, though we looked into the Sveta Nedelya Cathedral on the way. The scaffolding that had been along the whole of one wall ever since I first saw it (last October) has been taken down now, so the results of the fresco cleaning that had been going on there could clearly be seen.

Back at the hostel we played some games of pool and had our free dinner before returning to our room.

We've got an early start tomorrow - our bus to Veliko Tarnovo leaves at 09.00 - so I'd better be off now for a relatively early night.

Yesterday I returned to Sofia and checked into my old favourite, Hostel Mostel. The journey from Skopje went smoothly and the border crossing was quicker than on the way in.

Taken on my walk to the hostel;

Once I'd checked in, I walked down the road to another old favourite - a particular pizza kiosk/ café I know of round the corner from Boulevard Vitosha and the Court of Justice - for a late lunch. After that I just relaxed for a few hours at the hostel, before having their free dinner of pasta, sauce and salad. I met up with 'R' and her brother for a bit before going to bed - I was in a dorm room that night, but after Dave arrived today we moved into a private double.

This morning, before Dave arrived, I took 'R' and her brother to the Monument to the Soviet Army. After looking round it for a bit I left them to explore further, because I needed to get the bus to airport.

Once Dave and I had checked into our double room, we didn't do all that much for the rest of the day. He had had to get up very early to go to the airport, so he was now knackered and needed a rest.

We did go out for a walk with his DSLR camera, however; we revisited the wonderful pizza place and Dave got a few shots of the Court of Justice and Boulevard Vitosha.

This pizza place makes all their pizzas by hand; we saw a woman getting freshly-made dough out of a huge tub and then rolling it out into a massive circle. I've seldom seen such massive pizzas before. Every now and then she'd get delicious-looking, well loaded pizzas out of the oven, cut it into slices and transfer them into the glass cases from where customers can take their pick.

In the evening we played some pool, had our free dinner and saw 'R' and her brother again. Tomorrow we've decided to go to Mount Vitosha, the mountain that provides a picturesque backdrop to Sofia.

On the journey from Veliko Tarnovo to Sofia I was unlucky enough to miss all the sunflower fields by the side of the main road (I think I dozed off right at the wrong moments), but luckily I didn't miss any of them in Macedonia. The sunflowers are blooming right now and they are a magnificent sight! Aside from fields of waving sunflowers, the landscape in Macedonia was a mixture of dramatic mountains, grassy hills and farmland.

At the border our bags were checked once and our passports twice, but we weren't given passport stamps unfortunately (I was really hoping I'd get a stamp!) Our baggage checks took longer than they should have done because a small group of young British guys had theirs checked extra hard; after the rest of us had been finished with and got back on the minibus, the guards were still out checking their bags with an extra-fine comb. The others told me they they thought it was because when the guards had originally got on the bus to check passports, the guys had annoyed them by laughing and joking around! Nothing dodgy was found though, clearly, because eventually they were allowed back on the bus.

Just as we drove away from the border there was a moment of shock - we passed right next to an overturned car in the road, either incredibly rusty or burnt out, with policemen next to it. No ambulances were there.

About an hour into Macedonia, the sun set; it looked incredibly pink. My photo doesn't do it justice.

On arrival at Skopje's main bus station, I found my way to the hostel OK - it was only about 15 minutes' walk. Macedonia also uses the Cyrillic alphabet and in fact the language is very similar to Bulgarian. The girl at reception just told me that there's been a mix-up and I'm actually supposed to be at Shanti Hostel 1 rather than Shanti Hostel 2, and when I said 'nyama problem' (no problem) she asked if I spoke Macedonian! I had to say "no, but I do know a little bit of Bulgarian!"

Just about to move down the road to Shanti Hostel 1! Macedonian time is an hour behind Bulgarian time, so it feels a bit later to me than it actually is. After over seven hours of total travel time today, bed is certainly calling.

From Shipka we descended into the Valley of the Roses. Right now we are in the middle of the rose season, which is a big deal here; Bulgaria makes about 60% of the world's rose oil, plus smaller amounts of other rose products like rosewater, soap, hand cream, liqueur and things like that.

Now when you hear or see the name 'The Valley of the Roses' you may get an image in your head of a valley completely filled from one side to the other with field after field stuffed with red, pink or white roses. Wonderful scents hanging languorously in the air. Roses as far as the eye can see (until the mountains appear in the horizon)! The reality is not quite like that, however. Now Mum and I were under no false illusions - we knew it wasn't going to be like the idealised image it's easy to come up with - and so we still really liked what we saw. There was a lot of farmland, both arable and for livestock, but we did pass the occasional field of pink roses; a novelty to people from the UK, where there are some rose gardens, but not open fields like the ones we saw here.

We stopped in the outskirts of Kazanluk at the impressively named Research Institute of Roses, Aromatic & Medicinal Plants, which contains the small but interesting Museum of the Rose.

Before we went inside, we looked round part of the grounds and admired some almost perfect-looking deep red roses clearly at the peak of health.

Inside the museum, bowls of rose petals were placed around the museum - a great touch, I thought. The scent was amazing. We saw lots of old equipment for the distillation and storage of rose oil (attar of roses), fascimiles of black and white photos of rose pickers in action, and some documents relating to the attar of roses trade. No wonder real rose oil is expensive; apparently, to get 1 kg of rose oil you need 3000 - 3500 kg of petals from the pink Kazanluk rose, or 5000 kg from the white rose! The petals are picked in the morning, from 4 am until about 10 am; apparently petals picked in the afternoon lose up to 50% of their oil content.

Mum and I both bought ourselves a bottle of rose liqueur from the tiny shop attached to the museum. Then we crossed the road and walked into a rose field. The roses were not very close together (the majority must have been picked already) but there were still a decent amount there and we both enjoyed looking round.

From the rose field we headed into the town centre to visit the famous Thracian tomb. This we were unable to do; it was locked up and apparently only archaeologists and other official people are allowed in. We did however visit the full-scale replica round the corner. This is absolutely tiny, but the frescoes are fantastically well done. You would never guess that they are replicas if you didn't know otherwise.

It was another hour and a half before we arrived in Plovdiv; both Mum and I dozed off on the way. The hostel we stayed at (Hiker's Hostel) wasn't as good as Guesthouse Old Plovdiv, but the owner was friendly and the place served our needs. After a rest, we went for a walk. Neither of us was particularly hungry for some reason, so instead of dinner we visited a Turkish coffeeshop attached to Dzhumaya Mosque. Mum had a decaf coffee and I had a normal Turkish coffee; to go with our drinks, Mum had baklava while I had sutlac (Turkish rice pudding).

At lunchtime we were due to catch the bus to Veliko Tarnovo, but we managed to fit quite a lot into the morning.

The first place we went was another gorgeous National Revival house (the Old Town is full of them).

In the courtyard we admired the roses - right now we are in the middle of the rose season in Bulgaria.

From there we walked down the road to the Roman stadium remains, popping into one or two antique shops on the way (one of these shops had lots of amazing old painted wooden chests - we both coveted them, but potential transportation difficulties put us off buying any).

The stadium lies in front of Dzhumaya Mosque, in the middle of the main shopping street. The seating in the stadium is made of the same gleaming white marble as those in the Roman amphitheatre.

Our next destination was the intriguingly-named 'Singing Fountains' within Tsar Simeon's Gardens. I visited this park back in March, but it was still a bit wintry-looking then, plus I didn't go as far as the fountains. This time all the trees were fully in leaf and the flowers had bloomed. The fountains turned out to look quite impressive, set within a massive pool which I was desperate to swim in. The sun was very hot and the water looked so inviting! No evidence of singing though...

After staying there a while we suddenly realised what the time was. Quick march back to Guesthouse Old Plovdiv! On the way back we saw part of a procession celebrating the Day of Culture & Literacy. This public holiday celebrates the Cyrillic alphabet in particular.

We took a taxi to the North bus station, where I bought our tickets to Veliko Tarnovo. We had a bit of time to kill then, so we took turns to go next door to Lidl while the other person stayed to look after the bags.