Author archive
30 June 2018
We woke to our alarm at 0500 and readied ourselves. Hopping out of the lift at the ground floor, we clambered over the breakfast items laid out on the floor, waiting to be carted to the rooftop restaurant. The receptionist insisted that we had some coffee/tea and ordered the waiter, busy with transporting breakfast, to […]
29 June 2018
I thought I’d take Kim to Princes’ Islands today as it is a good and cheap way of seeing Istanbul from the water. We got on the public ferry around 0930 for a 1000 departure. It was vert busy on board with many Middle-Eastern tourists, some domestic tourists and a few foreigners. We called into […]
28 June 2018
Breakfast at the hotel was served on the rooftop overlooking the Golden Horn and the minaret of the mosque next door. Lovely! The plan for today to repeat for Kim, the sights we saw 26 years ago. I had repeated them in recent years and can easily show him the way there. And they’re all […]
27 June 2018
It is amazing how we made the morning disappear with doing very little before our long bus ride to Istanbul at 1200. We walked to Serdika Bus Station (next to the Train and Central Bus stations) where the bus was already there. Surprisingly, Metro Turizm, a Turkish company has Bulgarian-registered buses with Bulgarian livery. Onboard […]
26 June 2018
I had only booked the tour to Rila Monastery yesterday afternoon so it was lucky that there was availability at the last minute. It is not easily accessible by public transport. The bus left at 0900 from behind the St Alexander Cathedral (cathedral for the Bulgarain patriachate). We had the intention of visiting the Cathedral […]
25 June 2018
We had booked the 1030 bus from Veliko Tarnovo’s station to Sofia. We walked downhill to the station. The 3h bus ride was all smooth except Kim needed the toilet as a result of the diuretic effect of his blood pressure medication. The driver obliged with a stop since the onboard toilet was locked off. […]
24 June 2018
We joined a free walking tour today at 1100. There wasn’t much that we hadn’t seen per se, but the knowledge and the anecdotal snippets given by the guide were very informative: The Cyrillic alphabet wasn’t invented by/for the Russians but for Bulgarian. It wasn’t invented by St Cyril but his students based on his […]
22 June 2018
With a 1030 departure to Bulgaria’s old capital Veliko Tarnovo, we had a leisurely start with some muesli and milk before a taxi ride to Hotel Horoscop where the bus would leave from. Here we finished our Romanian money with coffee, pastries and some takeaway sandwiches. The Pegasus van service (pre-bookable online) was god-sent and […]
22 June 2018
The alarm woke us at 0530 and we walked to the station at 0600 leaving some time for coffee and sandwich at the station. Our train to Bucharest originated from Budapest Keleti station and was a few minutes early. We were seated in the last wagon. On my explorations during the journey, I wandered to […]
21 June 2018
We had another late start today; not good considering we have to wake early tomorrow for the 0643 train to Bucharest. In case we weren’t able to find a taxi tomorrow morning, we thought we’d check out the 11 minute walk to the station. Once the station was in sight, we decided to continue by […]