Beautiful Bulgaria

Hello friends 🙂 Today I have decided to look back and write about on my family’s time in Bulgaria because I fear that I will forget things as time goes on. So anyways I hope you enjoy.

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Train to Bulgaria.

For three months we spent our time in Bulgaria, one of my favorite Balkan countries. Bulgaria is filled with amazing food and a beautiful landscape. We traveled to Bulgaria after taking an 11-hour train from Serbia. We arrived in Sofia Bulgaria with slightly a negative start, people were a bit rude and we were given stern disapproving looks. After a week of staying in the city, we headed to a summer camp to work on a farm and take care of the camp kids. This kind of volunteering is called workaway (a cool site that helps us live affordably, how it works is the volunteers work for 4 to 5 hours a day in exchange for food and housing.) So anyway, we were planning to stay there for 3 months and experience traditional Bulgarian life and also be able to have social interactions. We met another workawayer called Ashley who was quite an awesome gal. After a week of

Hiking up the fields with the goats.

working and having great memories with the camp kids, learning how to milk goats and take care of horses, helping in the kitchen, and helping the kids get comfortable with horses (even though we had little experience with horses ourselves,) things started to change. The exchange of the workaway turned from 4-5 hours to all day, and 1 day off (but it was looked down upon.) We felt some uneasiness from the owner of the farm, and the people who worked there. As the summer camps started to become larger, the less food was given to the workawayers. In the end, we left earlier than planned when our safety got involved in the mix of things. But I won’t forget the positive experiences that we had with the horses, Ashley, and the camp kids.

The view from a town close by. PC: Izabel Antle https://happyworldwanderer.wordpress.com/

After leaving the workaway we traveled back to Sofia, and then rented an Airbnb outside of the big city into a small one named Novi Iskar.  During our stay there we were provided so much generosity from our Our lovely Airbnb host Margarita, and her amazing parents Ganka and Georgi, but we called him “master chef.” Margarita took us on a hike in a nearby town and the landscape was very beautiful.

Fresh cherries straight from the tree.

Ganka let us help her pick cherries from her tree and then she boiled them, added water and made cherry juice. She also let us hold her newborn chicks. Master chef Always made sure our tummies were full of his amazing food. Our hosts made us feel at home and we miss them and their town very much.

After our stay in Novi Iskar for three weeks, we then moved traveled back to Veliko Tarnovo and traveled to a small village where we had rented a house at Trinity Rocks Farm. We stayed for one week, admiring the landscape of the village. There was a really lovely donkey named “Trinity.” My sisters and I rode into the village with our host’s friends and drank Fanta.

 

Rachael Swinging by the Yantra river  PC: Izabel Antle   https://happyworldwanderer.wordpress.com/

Secluded from the big cities you get opportunities to see the stars in a clearer view. On a clear night, we went out to see the milky way. Soon It was time to leave and we traveled back to Veliko Tarnovo and waited for the bus to a city called Plovdiv, Bulgaria’s second biggest city. While we were in Veliko Tarnovo we took advantage of our time, ate a quick lunch and walked through the big and small neighborhood streets enjoying the views of this city. Veliko Tarnovo is located north in central Bulgaria, and is actually surrounded by trees. It’s quaint and beautiful, with small side streets.

View of the city

Eventually, we had to go to the bus station and travel to Plovdiv. On our way, we passed through sunflower fields and it was really pretty to see all the sunflowers point to the sun. When we finally got to Plovdiv our original plan to stay for two weeks changed to a month because we loved it so much. Plovdiv is my favorite city in Bulgaria because of the beautiful downtown and parks. While we were there was a festival of

Kosovo dancers heading to the stage.

cultural heritage (we actually had no idea it would happen) and for a week people from different countries would dance and sing. Plovdiv’s “old-town” was very beautiful, it had cobble-stone sidewalks and cute buildings also a walking tour that taught us the history of the city and Bulgarian culture. There was also a fountain light show that goes on at 9:00pm every night. After staying in Plovdiv we traveled back to Sofia and took the train back to Belgrade, Serbia leaving this country was really sad, but I will be excited to go back.

Sitting at the top of Plovdiv’s “old-town”

Some Things I’ve Learned from Bulgaria

• How not to be afraid of horses…
• goat milk can be really good.
• Bulgaria has amazing thrift stores.
• Bulgarian salads (tomato, cucumbers, shredded cheese) is REALLY good.
• Bulgaria is very affordable and underrated.
• The People are so kind!

So anyways, If you ever consider going to the Balkans, make sure to spend some time visiting Bulgaria! Okay, I hope whoever reads this has a good day 🌼