Sofia to Ruse

Trains #26 and #27, Distance travelled from Shanghai 22,300 km

I finished my last post rather abruptly, at the lower end of Vitosha Boulevard in Sofia, Bulgaria - I was tired! There’s a park here which runs for several kilometres, has an arts centre, a museum, a cultural centre and, of course, a lot of park land. I don’t get very far in, because at the top of the park, there’s some sort of fair happening - I overhear someone say it is for Oktoberfest, but there’s not a lot of beer. I find a food caravan which is doing what they call bratwurst and craft beer - the beer’s great, but the “bratwursts” are just standard sausages. Then I see a group of fellows running a barbecue which looks much more interesting - they have lots of different types of meat, as well as small bread buns they put on the heat to puff up a bit.

The sausage might not look like much, but its great, spicy and meaty. It’s autumn, and the trees are looking pretty glorious.

That’s the National Palace of Culture - a venue for cultural events. I’d like to explore the park a bit more, but I haven’t really dressed for the cold (it’s getting down to 3 degrees overnight, and there’s a pretty sharp dip in temperatures late afternoon), so need to head back. Here are some pictures I took on the way down.

This building has the Ministry of Education and a hotel, and holds a wee secret in its courtyard - Saint George Rotunda Church: Sofia’s oldest building, it dates back to the 4th century and was originally built as a Roman bath. There are remnants of some frescoes but the walls are, sadly, mainly bare brick.

The building to the left in this photo was the old Soviet Department Store, Zum, - I’m not sure what is happening in it now, as it didn’t seem to be open. Looking on Google, I see it’s a combination of a Ministry building and “gift shops, fashion boutiques & coffee bars”. The building beside it is the Communist party building - rather modest compared to its neighbours.

Further up is the central mosque and, opposite it, the central Sofia market hall. When I was here last time, it was functioning as a market - it was either here or the mall up the street where I bought a heavy jacket, thinking the Bulgarians would know how to make clothing that stands up to the cold, only to find it was made in China. I still wear that jacket, so it is a good one. The market hall now, however, is just a regular supermarket, with a few food shops on the mezzanine.

I come back in the morning for a wander around the supermarket, and to check out the food shops for breakfast - more damn sausages, delicious ones - a smoked pork and beef and a spicy pork and beef with cheese. When I say breakfast, it is well after noon, so a beer is very welcome.

The rest of the day is a bit of a write off. I picked my hostel because it has laundry facilities - the washing machine is fine, but the dryer, oh dear! It takes several hours to dry my clothes (probably should have done them in two loads), and I can’t really leave the hostel while they are drying. So I don’t go out until dinner - there are very few options close to the hostel, but I find a great pizza bar on a back street: the pizza (bacon and mushroom - she has no ham, and I delete the artichoke) is so good, I don’t mind that I have to stand at a bench outside in the cold to eat it.

Leaving Sofia is a bit tricky, as the railway lines to the west have been ripped up to allow for a high speed railway line - the first stage is not open for another month. I spend ages working out possible options, even consider a bus, as that would be the fastest option. If I am to stick to trains, however, the main route is now through Romania - which means a considerable backtrack east. This involves a change of train in Ruse, right on the border with Romania - when I check it out, it sounds nice, so I book in for a couple of nights. I’m a bit confused when I set my alarm - it says there are 7 hours between 2 and 8. When I wake - before the alarm goes off - I’m confused again by a discrepancy between my watch and my phone: daylight saving stopped at 3 this morning.

My train out of Sophia is fairly standard, open carriages with four seats across. We progress fairly slowly across the country side, which is looking rather lovely with the autumnal colours - there’s a fair amount of bush and trees. I have to change trains at a place called Gorna Oryahovitsa (just outside the wonderful city of Veliko Tarnovo, Bulgaria’s former capital). My new train is a bit of a wreck, and boy is it slow! It’s only 100 km to Ruse - we take two and a half hours. It doesn’t help that we stop every five minutes, even where there’s no sign of life at all.

As you can see, the windows are filthy and carrying a fair amount of paint from the tagging. Still - I don’t actually mind slow trains, and the scenery is pleasant enough, without anything particularly spectacular. On arrival in Ruse station, my phone is giving a weird distance to my hotel - by the time I have figured things out, the doors are closed and we are off to the next station, wherever that may be. Luckily, it’s a halt at the north end of the city, so it just doubles my walking time. It’s dark by the time I get to the hotel, so I don’t bother about going to see the other thing Ruse is on the border with, but it’s my first port of call in the morning.

Yep, it’s the Danube.

Cheers!