Be careful what you ask for! During our tour of Bulgaria we had really struggled to find camp-sites. We had seen loads of them marked on our map, but had been met with a mixture of truck-stops, seedy cabins and run-down facilities. The exceptions seemed to be those campsites run by English people, such as…
Read moreAuthor: Joe
Bulgarian music in space
Izlel e Delyo haidutin „Излел е Дельо хайдутин” [audio http://www.balkanfolk.com/pic/samples/180400/Izlel_e_Delio_haidutin.mp3] (mp3 from balkanfolk.com) The spaceship Voyager has a large collection of Earth music recorded on it, for the entertainment of any alien species it might encounter on it’s mission. This is one of them a piece of Bulgarian music from the singer, Valia Balkanska. The lyrics go…
Read moreLanguage classes
Started our Bulgarian language classes yesterday, in Wigton of all places! I’m looking forward to getting to grips with the language, and being able to write a bit too.
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Day 8 Elhovo to Plovdiv
Our visit to Chris and Val marked the end of our scheduled meeting and property viewings. Our last week in Bulgaria was completely our own. We decided that we would like to revisit some areas we’d been through, but first we wanted to visit the city of Plovdiv before heading back north to Veliko Tarnovo….
Read moreSignposts
Signposting in Bulgaria is like nothing we’ve ever seen before, but the Bulgarian way is apparently common in Europe. Instead of a signpost pointing to the nearest town, and having other destinations along the way marked, signposts usually point to either Ruse, Sofia, Varna, Burgas or Istanbul. You’re expected to know which direction you want…
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Day 7 Resting near Elhovo
Today we had planned a rest-day, a chance to chill out and relax a bit after our hectic and tiring drive of the last week. We planned to meet up with Chris and Val, who live near Elhovo and had kindly asked us to stay for the night with them at their house. We met…
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Day 5 Palamartsa to Rakovo
Today was spent mostly looking at houses in the area around Palamartsa, before taking a leisurely drive into the hills around Sliven area. We had no particular idea of where we were headed, just that we fancied seeing a bit of really remote countryside and villages, to see what life could be like far away…
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Day 4 Byala to Palamartsa
After a very uncomfortable night in the car at the truck-stop we went to Polsko Kosovo to quiz Sue, our next unsuspecting ex-pat, on life in Bulgaria, where we saw the biggest grapes I had ever seen!! After some lovely home-made cake and plenty of coffee we headed to Palamartsa. By this time we really…
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