Europe

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Bulgaria to Turkey by bus

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 […]

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Rilas Monastery

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 […]

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Bulgaria’s current capital

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.  […]

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Learning lots

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 […]

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Bulgaria’s old capital

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 […]

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Back to Bucharest

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 […]

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Europe’s largest outdoor museum

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 […]

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Moving on to Sibiu

Today we only have to get to Sibiu not so far away.  We had allowed the morning free here in Sighisoara.  We had a leisurely start before grabbing breakfast in the town square.  As we didn’t find anywhere that did breakfast per se, we settled on a toasted sandwich each; one with ham and cheese […]

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Hilltop fairytale town

We had booked the rental car till 2000 last night with an after-hour return.  So it was OK to return it this morning around 0830 before their 0900 opening.  From the Avis office, it was only a couple of minutes walk to the train station for our 0858 departure to Sighisoara. The train to Sighisoara […]

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Bad day made good

We walked to the nearby Sixt rental car desk located in a nearby hotel.  At the opening time of 0900, tt was unattended but we managed to ring up the number provided.  They couldn’t do us a car till around 1100. That left us with our backup booking with Avis for 0930.  We taxied down […]

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