It was interesting getting here

It started off as a normal train trip to get into Bulgaria from Romania but it ended up being one of the funniest train trips that I have ever been on. The first few hours were nice and ordinary as we travelled through the Romanian countryside. There wasn't much to see outside the train but we sat and chatted and ate the snacks that we had bought at the supermarket. It became vastly more interesting when we arrived at the Bulgarian border crossing. While we were waiting for the passport control man to get to our cabin, a man who had earlier been selling currency on the train, came up to our cabin and told us that because of some trouble with the train line the train was no longer going to the station at Veliko Turnovo but was taking a different route to Sofia and onto Istanbul. We thought that he must have been joking at first at that seemed really strange that they wouldn't have told us this before we arrived in Bulgaria. Surely they must have known that the track was closed before we set off from Bucharest. Our intrepid leader got off the train and checked with some of the station officials who confirmed that the train was not going to Veliko Turnovo anymore and that we would have to get on another train that was going to another town that was only 14 km away from there.

So after our passport check, we piled off the train with all our gear and waited on the train station for the next train to arrive. The train we had been on headed off in the direction that we had come from presumably to change to a totally different line. We waited about 40 minutes on the station and thankfully our leader had some currency so he headed off to the shop and returned with cake and wine to keep our spirits up. The train that arrived was a local train and the only tourists on it were our group and two random english tourists who had decided to follow us as it seemed that our guide had a vague idea what was going on. The train was quite full so we ended up split up between cabins sharing with locals. And that was when it started to get weird.

Four of us ended up in a cabin with two older Bulgarian ladies, a man and a younger girl. None of them spoke any English or German but seemed keen to chat to us anyway, despite our distinct lack of Bulgarian. With much use of maps and writing we managed to explain where we were going and where we were from. Chingy won some brownie points by telling the older woman that she was beautiful, a phrase that he had been taught by a man on the other train. We got out some food and started to share that around and the other woman ended up giving us a bag of Bacon Bits. These are very odd looking wheat and bacon flavouring snacks of the deep fried variety. Given that at the time there were only two of us in the cabin with the Bulgarians and Lisa is vegetarian and I don't eat pork, we tried to refuse them but the woman would not be dissuaded. So we sat them on the bench in the hope that one of the boys would eat them later.

It was hotter than hell in the cabins on the train but our cabin was probably the worst on the whole train. We later found out that this was because the Bulgarians had turned the heating up onto full. We were all sitting in t-shirts and getting hotter and hotter while they were all wearing jumpers and jackets and not looking at all warm. We tried opening the windows but the locals kept shutting them and making cold signals.

The Bulgarians aren't very good at charades, I've decided as we had great difficulty trying to communicate with them. But we had fun trying. We ate the cake and drank the wine that our leader had brought as we continued to travel through the Bulgarian countryside. We had no idea where the station that we were going to was and it was made harder by the fact that it was now dark so we couldn't really see much either. The people in our cabin tried to tell us how long it was going to be and we eventually worked out that they meant that it would be about ten minutes after they all got off.

Chingy worked his magic and found some girls who spoke a little English. He chatted to them until the common phrases ran out and then he just had his photo taken with them. I wonder what story will be told about that photo when he gets home.

Once the Bulgarians got off the train, we opened the window and turned down the heater that we had by now worked out was on full so the room just went down to being hot rather than unbearably hot. We were sitting trying to work out what to do with the Bacon Bits as no-one seemed inclined to try them, when a Bulgarian man walked past. Chingy had them in his hand and just passed them to the man. You would have thought that they were made from solid gold given the look of extreme delight on the man's face as he rushed off down the corridor. It was quite hysterical.

We finally arrived at our station and got off the train. We had no idea at this stage how we were going to get to Veliko Turnovo which was about 14km away. So our leader headed out into the dark and cold to try and find out. There are buses that run quite frequently but we were all just keen to get there so it was agreed that we would take taxis instead. The English couple from the train were getting picked up by a man from the hostel that they had booked so he organised some taxis to come and take us to our hotel. We killed the time waiting trying to work out some of the place names on the destination board at the train station. It would have helped if any of us had had even a passing knowledge of Bulgarian geography.

The drive to Veliko was an interesting one too, with our driver possibly being the Stig in civvies. He drove awfully fast given it was dark, wet and the road windy. We overtook a truck coming over a rise, while going around a corner over unbroken lines. And I thought that was only legal in Vietnam. He didn't even honk the horn first to give us right of way. Veliko Turnovo is really lovely at night. We came in from the direction where the first thing that you really see is the castle which is really lit up well at night and looks very fancy. The rest of the town is also well lit with lots of statues and nice buildings. The taxi drivers refused to take us up the narrow cobblestoned street to our hotel, claiming that it was only 100 m walk to get there. It was more like 500m but I think that we were all just so grateful to be there we didn't mind. We pretty much got to our rooms and crashed.

The hotel that we stayed in was nice but the rooms were really cold overnight. I think that they are used to having tourists in the summer when it doesn't matter. They did have plenty of bedding so you were fine while in bed but got cold very  quickly once you got out of it. The next morning, I had leftovers from the train for breakfast before heading out with the others to go and see the castle. We tried dropping by the tourist info on the way to get some maps but it is closed on weekends during the off season. So we just had to take photos of the map on the wall outside the tourist info office and hope for the best.

We walked around the middle section of town, finding the post office and the money exchange before heading up what appeared to be the main shopping street to get to the castle. There are some interesting things for sale in shops in Bulgaria. It's a strange mix of old fashioned style and just really tacky stuff. And they are all wearing it. We saw some very special hooker boots in a lot of shops and on a lot of feet. They also have great ads here in Bulgaria. It seems that it is perfectly reasonable to use a semi naked woman with very large breasts to sell anything. They had one for beer, one for Kodak film and I even saw one for plumbing equipment.

At the top of the street we found the entrance to the castle. The castle was used by the Royal family when it was the capital of Bulgaria during the second Bulgarian empire (Bulgaria was often taken over by other people it seems). The castle has been there longer than that though as it was used as a fortress since the middle of the first millenium. There isn't much left of the original buildings, just the church and a mostly intact wall with a couple of towers. You go across a bridge to get into the fortress complex which is surrounded by cliffs giving it a natural geographical advantage. As you go in the entrance, there are some very creepy puppet things and a horse that you can get your photo taken with (for extra money of course). It was quite disturbing.

We headed out towards the tower because it was a different direction to the large Bulgarian tour group in front of us. The tower is in the South Eastern corner and was used to guard one of the city gates and protect the fortress water source. It was also where some king was imprisoned after a battle in the 13th century. He was later killed because while he was in the tower, he was also having it off with the emperor's wife. You can climb the tower but the stairs are really dodgy looking and have no rail so I decided that the view was good enough from the bottom. One annoying thing that we noticed while we were walking along the wall was that there are a huge number of lights around the fortress complex so it is impossible to get a photo of anything without getting one in it. They do make it look great at night but they just get in the way during the day.

We then headed up the hill to the church which is right at the very top of the complex. It was built centuries ago (I forget exactly when) on the foundations of a much older church. It was renovated in 1985 and that was when the interior paintings were done. They have a really nice style of churches here in Bulgaria with patterned brick work which looks really lovely. They don't have large windows and they don't have stained glass either, just coloured glass. The inside of the church is absolutely amazing. The walls are covered with murals like most orthodox churches but they are all modern with a very communist style to them but with touches of the older style. It is very difficult to describe but when I get a chance, I'll put some photos up so that you can see. It is quite incredibly and totally unexpected. They play great music inside the church while you are there too. I was very impressed.

From the church we headed through the ruins of the old palace and down onto execution rock. There used to be a tower there where they would through people off the cliff into the river to kill them. It's not that impressive though there is a nice view of the town from there. We then walked back to the main entrance and out into the town again. By that stage we were all cold and starting to get hungry so we found a restaurant. It was the first one as you come out of the castle (that gives you an idea how hungry we were) and it looked warm and smelt good so we thought that we would give it a try. It was really really good. I had some really nice soup followed by potato cake things that were made with cheese, mashed potato, onion and herbs, coated in eggs and then fried. They were served with sour cream and salad and were very very good. I now know the Bulgarian name so I can always order them again.

Refuelled and feeling much warmer we headed back out and decided to go and look at some of the churches that were around the river beneath the castle. We walked through to a couple of them, built in a similar style to the church in the castle. Unfortunately, the first one was locked up and the second wanted 4 lev to go inside, so we just looked around at the outside and then headed back into the main part of town to find the internet cafe. Of course because of very poor sign placement, we walked straight past the internet that we had seen in the morning and had to walk back again. It was a good connection and the place was full of people watching movies online.

After a couple of hours online, I headed back to the hotel hoping that the others would be back as I didn't have a key on me. I stopped off at the supermarket and got some breakfast stuff and then went back and knocked on the door. The lights were on so I knew that there had to be someone home but I couldn't get any answer. So I sat on the wall across the road for a bit getting colder and colder. I opened the plastic bag that I had from the shop and eight cats instantly appeared looking for food. There are heaps of kittens around in Veliko Turnovo and they are all hungry. You often hear them fighting over food in the night. I didn't see any well fed cats in the time we were there. Eventually another woman who was staying in the accommodation turned up and let me in. I found the others having drinks and nibbles in our room with music playing, hence the fact that they hadn't heard me banging on the door.

We went out for dinner at a hotel down the street and except for the random order in which dishes appeared on the table, the meal was really good. We mostly had Bulgarian stuff which was slightly strange in some cases but a good change from Romanian. Pork and potatoes still feature strongly but there are some different things and many more vegetarian choices on the menu. After dinner we were going to walk back up to the castle to look at the lights but it was pouring with rain so we decided not to go. We were woken again at about 11.30 by fireworks though it was a much shorter show than the night before. I don't know whether it happens every night or just on the weekends but it sounded like they were being let off in the back yard of the hotel.

This morning we just got up, had something to eat and walked to the bus station in the pouring rain. We were very pleased to find that it was a very fancy bus that was going to Sofia so it was a very comfortable trip. We even got a DVD though the sound wasn't very loud which did make it difficult to hear. Thankfully, it was the Transporter which isn't difficult to follow even if you can't hear any of the dialogue and we just made up most of the story as we needed to.

I would have liked a bit longer in Veliko Turnovo as it did seem to have more stuff to see and there is a little village nearby that is meant to be worth a trip out to. It could easily fill a couple of days, especially if the weather is nice. I think a second day in the rain would not have been so great.