Bulgaria

Snow-capped mountains above Rila Monastery

Back in 2004 I visited a lot of countries on my Dhaka to Dakar tour, and now that I am back into publishing my book in chapter form I thought this would be a great opportunity to revisit some of the places I visited. One such place, the first stop in Europe, was the not-so-often visited country of Bulgaria.

Impressive Roman ruins above a highway!

 Bulgaria borders quite a few countries including Turkey (where I had just been), Greece and Romania (where I would head after Bulgaria). It was May-June 2004 and the weather was just warming up. Great weather in fact for visiting Plovdiv, an attractive university city with a smattering of Roman ruins and the capital Sofia, a charming city that I highly recommend to the traveler.

Veliko Tarnovo

 Sofia was full of churches and typical tourist fare, but on an easy day trip from the city I visited the Rila Monastery, a magical little place up in the mountains. I also visited Veliko Tarnovo, a smaller town with an impressive ancient citadel and beautiful perched on river banks. The weather there wasn't so great but the setting certainly was.

Restored house in Plovdiv.

If you'd like to know more about my time in Bulgaria, the chapter (7 in the series) is now available by itself for 99 cents on the Amazon kindle store, or 99 pence on the UK store.

US Amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B007SNSGVW

UK Amazon:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B007SNSGVW