Checkpoint called Sofia

Ruins in the middle of Sofia
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My trip started on July 16 at Belgrade train station where I took the Belgrade-Sofia train. Everytime I travel, I am trying to do it by night and to spend days as best as I can at every possible “checkpoint” I am passing by. This time it was a good advantage to have a night train from Belgrade that arrives in Sofia in the morning and then, in the evening there is another train, Balkan Express that goes to Istanbul. 1 hour after pasing the broder I could already see Sofia. As I arrived in Sofia, I followed the instructions my friend Anisa from Sofia gave me, so we could met that morning. In front of the train station on the bus stop I asked a man for some help in serbian (because its similar to bulgarian), and as soon as I asked him he told me to follow him. I was like "OK, why not, he knows Sofia better than me!" He took me to the right bus stop and went all the way to the stop where I was supposed to get off. And we also talked to eachother easily, he asked me where I am from, why I am here. I told him that I am from Serbia and he was so happy, he told that serbs are bulgarian brothers, bla bla... Pleasant little old man :) Anisa works in a Bulgarian voluntary service (SCI), we met on a technical meeting of SCI. I found her office and had a coffe with her colleague. After a short time she arrived. I waited for her to finish some stuff there and then she was ready to show me the city. The weather was perfect, sunny, with a pleasant breeze, perfect for some city sightseeing. The main street, boulevard actually, in Sofia has the name after a mountain that stands up above Sofia and can be seen as the end of the boulevard - Vitosha. On the other end of Vitosha boulevard is Saint Sunday, an Orthodox church. It is interesting in Sofia, that in a radius of like 500m you can see this Orthodox church, beside is the Mosque, on theleft side the Catholic church, and not far away the Sinagogue. The city centre is really wide and that’s what makes the walk more pleasant. Sofia is full of small parks where you can enjoy the shades and have a break. We passed many nice governmental buildings that are also close to eachother. Somewhere between some huge buildings an old monastery left during time along with ruins. It was worth to stop and take a look. Then she took me to see the Sofia University and took me in one of her favourite cafeterias where we had some kind of lunch. On our way back to the centre we took the other way to see the biggest orthodox church in Sofia and Bulgaria. On the other side of the ride is an eternal flame for all the Bulgarian heroes and soldiers died in all the wars before. We ended up on the boulevard where we started the tour, so we were walking in the surrounding streets. We reached the other end of the boulevard where the builing of Art Centre is dominating over the place.

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After a very nice day spent with Anisa, I had to catch the train to Istanbul, that was late from Belgrade 2 hours! Anyway, that couldnt make my day bad, because I spent a really nice day in Sofia.

With a good host, good time is granted.

On my way back from Turkey I stopped again, but this time with Lisa, a friend from the camp we attended together. She came to Bulgaria to do another camp. And I just wanted to visit Sofia for one more time. But this time it wasnt pleasant like the last one. It was raining so badly all day, so we went to a mall and ate some salads and sauces :) After we went to a pub for a beer, just not to think about this awful weather. When we got out of the pub the rain stopped. We went together to a hostel where she stayed that night, she stayed to catch some afternoon sleep, and I went to the train station to wait for my last train on this trip that will take me back to Belgrade.     Both these days in Sofia just made my trip more memorable and pleasant.