Last Stop Bulgaria: March 13th - March 20th, 2024
At this point in the trip we were feeling a little discouraged, a little gray, a little tired of packing, and a little ready to relax. We couldn't quite start this second round in Brașov relaxing; however, as we had to check out of the hotel and check into the Airbnb where we had left our stuff. Our host wasn't getting back to us, so when we checked out of our hotel, we used the codes from the last time to get into the complex. We snatched some shoes from our pile of stuff in the laundry room and left our mountaineering gear in the pile. Unburdened, we headed out for another day of sightseeing in Brașov.
We checked out some places we hadn't seen during our first stay in Brașov. Like Rope street which claims to be Europe's narrowest alley. We enjoyed the street art and graffiti before heading towards Biserica Ortodoxa Sfântul Nicolae and the First Roman School. It was steadily raining and we were looking forward to hiding inside the museum. Alas, when we arrived it explained we needed to be a group with a reservation in order to enter.
We walked back along Brașov's old town streets and wandered into an art museum instead. They asked us to put on plastic bags over our wet shoes in order to enter. Fair enough. The art museum was a small little museum with a few intriguing pieces. I was grateful for the warm, dry, quiet space with the added bonus of some nice artwork.
After the museum, we were late enough to officially check into our Airbnb so we let ourselves into the familiar room. It was incredibly nice to return to a place we already knew. Maybe a sign that we were travel fatigued.
The next day we rallied and headed to the ski hill. Based on our experience on quickly vanishing snow in Sinaia we were not expecting much, but the weather forecasts and reports on Facebook made it sound like they'd had about 8 inches of snow during all the rain the day before! There was also a festival of sorts kicking off that day. So we figured the snow couldn’t be too terrible. We took a Bolt to the ski hill and arrived slightly too early as most of the rental shops at the base of the hill were not open yet. We found an open one and got set up on some ok skis. Nothing stellar, nothing terrible.
At the top of the hill was the now expected smattering of people stretching before their first run. Ben and I joked again about how healthy Europeans are, and joined in with the stretches. When in Romania.
Visibility was terrible. If I were to go back to this resort I would have no idea I had been there before. We did some runs and the snow ranged from ok to icy to dirt. There was some fresh snow but it was wet and heavy and barely filled in the dirt spots and tracks that had been gouged out of the snowpack during the long dry stretch before. Due to the visibility and poor conditions we had to ski pretty slow. I made the mistake of going off piste at one point and the snow was so hard and chopped up I ended up awkwardly hopping on my skis to try and make it through the choppiness.
We took a break at one of the lodges where we bought hot chocolate and were told we couldn't eat our own food. Outside the lodge was a DJ who was playing club music at far too high a volume for 11:00 AM. At some point the MC commented that the DJ "is just waiting for some people to show up!" Ben and I were grumpy so we skied away to a different lodge that seemed to be piping in the DJ’s set out of speakers. We ate our food and as we sat at this smaller lodge the speakers slowly went from tolerable to we can’t hear ourselves think. We quickly finished our lunch so we could ski away to prevent hearing loss.
As we skied away we witnessed two ski police officers, except one was on a snowboard! I don't know why this amused me, but I couldn't stop imagining a cop snowboard hopping up to someone and falling on his face while trying to hand them a citation.
We skied a few more runs, but the snow quality was getting worse and the visibility was getting worse so we called it a day and headed down. We considered checking out the music sets at the lodge, but it was just loud club music at 1:00 in the afternoon. We do not feel the need to combine clubbing with skiing. Those two activities can remain separate for us.
The following day we hung out at the airbnb and spent the day on logistics and planning. We went to the climbing gym in the evening, where I had a pretty good day of climbing. I was less nervous about my back and I did more difficult routes than when we had been here a week earlier.
We had one more day in Brasov and we started it off with a run around the base of mount Tâmpa. I was surprised how hard it was to get into the mindset of running. It had been a while and I kept checking my watch for my turnaround time...like every 2 minutes. I just could not find a rhythm. Proof that we needed to get more running into our lives.
After the run we relaxed and packed for our upcoming train to Sofia. In the summer there is a single train you can take that connects Bucharest with Sofia. But not in the off season. So we had tickets from Brasov to Bucharest. Bucharest to Ruse which is right on the border. Then Ruse to Sofia. We decided to split up the train rides by spending the night in Ruse so we wouldn't be stressed trying to make a tight connection.
The train ride to Ruse was pleasant. When we got on Ben and I were slow making our plan for how to store all of our luggage and a German sounding man stated "ah you must be Americans and not used to trains" *sigh you are correct, but the problem is not that we are Americans, the problem is we have too much stuff, we know how to train thank you very much!
We ended up talking to the man for the whole train ride. He informed us he was Bavarian and that he was section hiking the Danube River. We talked a little about our travels but mostly he wanted to talk about himself and his travels. At one point in the discussion he brought up traveling in Poland. He made it clear that as a German he was nervous about traveling in Poland but found the people to be great and he feels terrible about the history and how important it is to apologize. During other parts of the conversation, when talking about some sections of his hike along the Danube, he made many disparaging remarks about the Roma people, using slurs and stereotypes with abandon. So...I guess not all of the groups targeted by the Nazis are included in his feelings of guilt…
At Giurgiu, the town just north of the border, a man came on to the train and collected our passports and left. We waited, and the man came back and handed them back out. The train moved south across the Danube and into Ruse, a man and a woman came on and collected everyone’s passports and disappeared. We all wandered off the train and onto the platform. Before too long, they came back and handed us our passports. We said goodbye to the talkative Bavarian and headed to our accommodation for the night.
Once we found our place, we had to play the escape room style game to make it inside. Once inside we dumped our stuff and we went for a walk in Ruse. We were looking for an exchange to swap our Romanian Lei for Bulgarian Lev, but it was a Sunday afternoon so none of the money changers were open. Oh well. It was a nice walk. The downtown space of Ruse was full of families enjoying a sunny evening and it created a very wholesome scene.
The next day we woke up slowly, found a money changer, left at check out and hung out in the train station for our train to Sofia. During the train trip I finished my embroidery bag. We arrived late in the day and caught a cab to get us to our airbnb. This airbnb was very escape room-esque in that we got dropped off on the side of the road. Entered an arched metal gateway, walked down a dark path, opened an ominous metal doorway, opened another rusty door, went down into a seemingly unfinished basement of a building, and opened yet another door to find our apartment. Sometimes, I do just want a hotel with a reception desk.We went out to eat at a pizza place nearby and then rested from our two days of travel.
I had been fairly negative in the lead up to Sofia. I was a little traveled out, but Ben pointed out this will be our last major city for a while and most of next summer we won't be in major population centers. So with some help from Ben I was looking forward to checking out this city. But first, breakfast. We went out to a charming place and had some really good food. We barely made it in time for the start of a free walking tour of the city.
I am really glad we took the tour as it gave a really good crash course history on Sofia. We started with some ancient ruins (that aren't being well developed for tourism because of politics and a hotel). Then moved on to the baths (which were Turkish, then not, but always a place to meet a future spouse, though now they are closed, but you can drink this sulfur water from the fountain to cure what ails you!) We learned that even though Bulgaria was on the wrong side of not one but two world wars, they are the only country to not send their citizens to concentration camps. We played a little bit of spot the pre world war buildings as not many were left standing after the punishment bombings. The city was rebuilt mostly during the communist era, so Sofia sports a good collection of brutalist architecture. The tour guide also dipped into the rather abrupt transition from communism to capitalism in the 90’s.
The biggest practical take away from the tour was to never ask a Bulgarian why they use the "Russian" alphabet. They will be sure to inform you that it is THEIR alphabet and the Russians use the Bulgarian alphabet, so no they will not be changing their alphabet any time soon!
The tour ended at the Alexander Nevsky Cathedral. We wandered inside and checked out the gilded artwork, and cool stonework. Then we checked out the crypts in the basilica of Saint Sofia from the 6th centurey and saw some very old tile work. We swung by St. George's Rotunda which is the oldest building in Sofia from the 4th century. We ended the day with a walk around Sofia’s South Park.
Our second day in Sofia we started at the art museum. I really enjoyed their statue garden and the children's book illustrations. Next we headed to the archeology museum. The organization of this one left much to be desired but it had some very cool exhibits.
We headed home that evening for dinner, packing again, and looking up weather for our upcoming ski trip to Bansko.
WE KNOW HOW TO TRAIN THANK YOU lol
ReplyDeletePeople just assume Americans are so uncultured >.<
Delete