Krakow

After just a day in Warsaw I was very eager to get to Krakow (that's Krakov, to you) as I had heard great things, so up early to get on the first available train. Being familiar with where the central station now was I grabbed my ticket and then had a bit of a wait. Decided to look through the adjoining mall and had just about chosen a dress when I remembered I had vowed never to shop at H&M ever again. Uneventful train ride to Krakow but arrived in time to join the Jewish Quarter walking tour that I was aiming for. This was a tour around the area known as Kazimierz, where the Jews had been driven out of the city centre (and all over Europe) to go and live - the tour had quite a Schindler's list focus. Was it really Schindler's List? No one actually knows but the general consensus is no. We were shown the remaining walled confines of the Ghetto – where hundreds of thousands of Jews were forced to live during theWWII before being sent to the nearby Plasvow Concentration Camp. We finally finished up at the museum in Schindler's Factory for another guided tour.

Once back at the hostel and having hungrily devoured the free Polish dinner on offer, I inadvertently woke my new room mates up who were napping before heading out “oooh can I tag along?” I asked the two obviously awesome American boys... and they didn't get rid of me for the next three days. So we bar hopped ourselves around the Old Town Market and after dancing on top of some tables decided it was time to head down to the infamous Singer bar in the Jewish Quarter – a lively little pub where all the tables are old Singer sewing machines. Like any good night out we were in search of food by the end of it and the WikiSherpa app delivered as always – we navigated our way to a local Kielbasa Van (Polish sausage) where we chowed down on possibly the best after town snack I have ever had.

Early the next morning (why oh why did we go out last night?) we embarked on the Auschwitz tour – obviously a must for any Krakow visit. After an hour long history video we were guided around Auschwitz I followed by Auschwitz II Birkenau – I'm actually struggling to write this bit... there are no words to describe being here, sobering is about the closest. You can absolutely not even begin to imagine the feelings or thoughts that these people who were sent to these concentration camps had going through their minds. And then remembering that they were all under the impression that they were going only to work in the camps when the reality was that three out of four people were immediately sent to the gas chambers upon arrival. Death was the punishment for anything and everything and living conditions were atrocious at an absolute best. To walk along the same roads as the prisoners both sentenced to death and liberated, even in silence to absorb the notion, doesn't begin to compare as in an hour we got to walk away with as much freedom as when we arrived. Even those liberated were pretty much given a life sentence after being subjected to such hell. To try to put this into perspective, one and a half million people were killed in the three Auschwitz camps alone in eighteen months. Definitely the most emotional part of the trip.

So we had a quiet afternoon to absorb all that before heading out for a repeat of the night before with one notable difference – karaoke! This is a special shout out to the latest sensation known as “Nipple City” and the two lead singers Brian and Carter. I was especially lucky to not only be present but to participate in their international debut. But don't Google this one (work might fire you), we hold the rights to the only video's ever made, watch this space though – they'll be world famous one day...

I was especially excited the next day as my sister Emma randomly happened to be in Krakow at the same time as me. So after a day of post drinking banter and wandering around the Old Town and its very pretty Wawel Castle I headed out to the Salt Mines to meet up with her. We spent the next three hours being guided around only about 1% of the huge mines 130m underground – very grandiose, an actual city down there complete with shops, restaurants, ballrooms and several churches, and that's just in the part that we saw.

It was time for the boys to finally be rid of me, so we cheersed our last Zywiec Piwo (fave Polish beer) to only being able to speak English (or is that American?) and inhaled a giant traditional meat platter. A couple of quiets out with Emma and her boyfriend Dan and his sister Tessa and we called it a night reasonably early.

I packed my final day full of walking tours – six guided tours in four days! Haven't I been stating (definitely not complaining) about being walking-toured out? First was the token Old Town tour but with our very entertaining and knowledgable guide, Maciek, it was a lot of fun and didn't get tedious like so many of the others can.

I signed up to his next tour as well because after all these weeks of war talk I felt like I needed to learn some more – Communist Tour! About half an hour out of the central city we were taken to Nowej Huty a community that has been designed and built to be the ideal communist city and able to withstand any attack that may happen upon it including nuclear. Eye opening to say the least – apartment blocks built so that all amenities are within the pentagonal shaped walls of the complex which are designed not to allow tanks to pass through them. Neighbours are able to spy on one another and the walls are thick enough that you can just step to the side once you have thrown a grenade at your attacker. Being in Poland, vodka is compulsory and so we rounded off the tour at a typical communist pub – unfortunately for me this came with some unwelcome attention from the local drunk who insisted on me dancing with him, lucky for me he is “known to the establishment” and after the obligatory one dance the surly waitresses were having none of it.

Utterly exhausted I made my way back to the hostel having booked a ticket on a 630am train the next morning – not my smartest move, but I had an idea on what was awaiting me at the other end and have not been disappointed – but it sure is good to be out of the city for a while.

Schindler's Office

Fence surrounding Auschwitz I

Auschwitz II Birkenau. Buildings now destroyed and reused elsewhere.

The entrance to Birkenau.

Gas Chambers that were destroyed when the Nazi's realised the war was nearing an end.

I will never complain a public toilet again...

St. Mary's Church in the Old Town Square of Krakow. A bugle call every hour on the hour from the top window.

Walking around the Planty - the strip of garden surrounding the Old Town where the old walls used to be. 

Just a casual memorial outside of this apartment block

Warszawa

Okay, the first half of this one is written in a style I haven't dabbled in before. It gives you a rare insight into how my brain actually works, imagine me thinking all of this – yeah, yeah I know, me thinking, it doesn't happen very often so might be a bit rusty... But this is me arriving into Warsaw, late at night, the first time I'm by myself to date.

        Right, so I'm by myself now. I can do this, I'm a big kid now. Oh look at that the bus is early into Warsaw – said: Var-shah-va. Var-shah-va

– hey, is this my stop? I don't think it is, but I'll get off anyway. That station looking building says central on it and it's always good to be in the centre of a new giant city. 

Ooh, this building IS a station and those are train tracks – well that's good because I do need a metro. And it finishes at eleven so I better get a move on because its ten fifteen. Must be one around here somewhere. Damn hostel not giving any directions. Alright, how do I buy a ticket? And actually find my right train. 

Wow, this is a huge metro station! 

Oh there's information I'll go and ask. Okay, miscommunication here, he says the train will be here at 1.18pm tomorrow, well that's not right because I know my stop is only three kilometres away. This mustn't be a metro station, it must be an actual train station... fancy, remember this for Thursday. 

Oooh a metro looking train thing just went by outside I'll go out by where it stopped.

Or not. That is in the middle of a giant street. 

No cabbies I do not want a ride I have soooo got this under control, plus I'm not in the mood to be ripped off, never mind the fact that I inadvertently deleted the confirmation email with the hostel address on it and no one speaks English around here. Lucky I dropped that pin on the iPhone map otherwise I really would be up a creek without a paddle. In Poland. Speaking no Polish. Right, I'll head underground to get to the middle of the street then. 

Cash machine! Cash is good. Ticket machine! I need one of those too. Perfect, I'm getting warmer! I'll stick this fifty in that the ATM just gave me to break it up, oh cool you're going to give me back the change in coins – that won't be annoying. 

Metro must be around this corner, oh that's not good, everything's closed – I'll ask this security guard. Nope, he doesn't speak English. Oh but this nice man offering to help me speaks English AND Polish, finally something is about to go right. Uh huh, okay, yep – walk five hundred metres down the road, on the left, “yep sure no worries I can do that I just needed to know where the metro station actually was and then I'm sorted, I'm just running out of time is all”, last train is in twenty minutes... 

Oh those giant chain fences make it look like you aren't supposed to cross the road here, oh well, I need to so I'm going to. 

Yuss, nailed it! Here's the station, and there's my stop on the board going that way and yep that board over there is going in the opposite direction so I should stand on this side because that's what the giant arrow says too. 

Here's the train, excellent I'll be there soon. Wait, what did you say moving train that I'm now in? That stop isn't in the direction I want to go! Oh my, it's five to eleven please let there be another train going the other way, please let there be another train going the other way. I'll just get off at the next stop (if it ever comes, gosh this is a long time between stops) and no one will even notice I went the wrong way because I'll have to walk through the station... 

Oh okay, just the one platform then, I'll just take these two steps and wait here while everyone sniggers because they know I am a stupid tourist who got on the train going in the wrong direction. 

Well, look at that with two minutes to spare even, here's the train. Only five stops now - including the one I've just come from. Perfect, that wasn't hard at all....

- Idiot! I'm hoping there aren't too many more experiences like this to come my way, although I'm sure if anyone can manage to get themselves worked up like this, it'd be me.

So, after the debacle of getting to the hostel I was excited to find that my bed was actually a capsule! Pretty nifty – it reminds me of the huts I built in the cupboards when I was a kid. I had the next days activities mapped out, I just needed to get up in time to do them. Unsurprisingly, I didn't manage this but set off anyway. The walking tour was just a general introduction to the gorgeously rebuilt Old Town but with a bit of a twist – vodka shots and pickle sandwiches! Apparently, lining the stomach with greasy or pickled foods before consuming copious amounts of vodka assists in warding off a hangover... I'm not yet converted but will attempt to assimilate this anyway. So, with the warning that it is rude by Polish standards not to drink when requested to by them we tapped glasses and bottoms up.

Following this, my newly acquired friends and I (see, not by myself for long!) headed to the Jewish Cemetery I had read about. There is an estimated quarter million graves in here and they are jammed right into every last spot imaginable and available in the 82ha walled confines. But probably the saddest part of this truly moving experience is the fact that during WWII the Nazi's came in and began removing headstones to re-use as roads and thus there is now many unmarked graves. They also burned any paper records that were kept and there is now no way of knowing who lies in these unmarked spots.

We continued to wander on, now in the rain, to the Pawiak Prison Museum. Like the rest of Warsaw this was completely destroyed during WWII – full of Jewish Prisoners at the time. We scrubbed up on more war history and Warsaw history before closing time.

It was now feeding time for us – dumplings, or perogei as they are known in Poland. We selected a few to share - champignon with cream and onion, salmon, and Russian flavoured – and all agreed they were delicious. A beer was by now well deserved as we had just spent nine hours walking and I chased this with a quiet night in (writing this) while the others moved on to different parts of Europe. 

Market Square

Warsaw was completely flattened in WWII so everything is new but a replica of the old - including the Old Town Walls

Pickles and Vodka (post consumption)

Jewish Cemetery

Piles of headstones from unmarked graves

Perogei - delicious!

The last of the Baltics - Riga and Vilnius

After the worst bus ride you can imagine – self inflicted so no sympathy required - we arrived in Latvia where the cheery girl at the hostel immediately handed us our free beers, my stomach still recoiling at the thought I ran for the bathroom. We got chatting to a couple of other kiwi girls and ended up going out for dinner to “No Problem” which delivered beyond expectations.

Our only day in Riga was upon us, we got up reasonably early to fit as much in as we could but at 10am still couldn't find anywhere open – come on Riga!! A Kiwi breakfast at Kiwi Bar (someone's gotta be onto it) while we waited for the town to wake up. Partaking in tourists obsession with climbing up things we headed to the top of St. Peter's Church, via lift this time not stairs – for a view of the city. We joined a walking tour, again, but this time our eccentric guide took us out of the walled city confines and away from the Old Town for a bit of Riga history and Art Nouveau.

Back into the Old Town after wards and we needed warming up with some traditional Latvian Food before heading to the Museum of the Occupation of Latvia for a whirlwind tour through there. On the way we were blocked off by several motorcades and a lot of red tape eventually finding out that the Latvia Conference was on including NATO and the several important people from the Baltic States – in the presence of more high profile figures again.

Back to the hostel to the 24hour bar before heading back to No Problem for dinner – not sure if our waiter was happy or exasperated with our return (happy I think, we are a great laugh and good tippers) and the food was absolutely delicious as usual. A night out followed by waking up early to watch the AB's in another victory before catching our bus to Vilnius, Lithuania.

Vilnius was a delight. We arrived just in time to join Mitch, Chris and Iain - over from London for the weekend – in a few beers, dinner and a rather hefty night out. Vilnius has a great party scene – who'd have thought (actually we are becoming quite use to this, obviously this is where a lot of tourist money goes to!)? A late wake up the next morning, a quick room change (despite making the booking twice they managed to cancel it and then overbook themselves but made up for this with free beers for us, dream result), waffles with nutella for the free breakfast and it was off to the KGB Museum or The Museum of Genocide Victims. This museum is set in a building that was used by both the Nazi's and the Communists at different times and describes the atrocities imposed upon the Lithuanian citizens during the USSR ruling and the Lithuanian Jews during WWII. Perhaps the most alarming thing we saw was a video of the execution of prisoners held captive in the KGB prison only to look up and realise we are in the same room and then to see the bullet holes on the walls.

I'm pretty sure this is all we managed to do this day before a repeat of the night before... spending quality time with friends though so it's not all wasted. The next day I set out in exploration of The Republic of Uzupio – an independent community within the city of Vilnius. A very artsy little republic which boasts a president, a prime-minister, two ambassadors (one being the Ambassador of Red Wine) and of course has it's own constitution which makes for entertaining reading. You can even get your passport stamped – if you go on the right day of the year (which I eventually found out after looking for two days) which just so happens to be April 1, a fools day for most but Independence day for Uzupio. I wandered around a cemetery where in the Spring time as the snow melts you can see human bones surface – being autumn I didn't see this and am relatively thankful but was still keeping half an eye out anyway. Up to a Castle to get some panoramic views of the city and brush up on a bit more history – the Baltic Way shaped part of the history of all three Baltic States as they sought independence of the USSR. 2.5million people held hands from Tallinn to Vilnius passing through Riga (about 800km off the top of my head) to create the Baltic Way. A quiet night in was had on our last evening, and actually my last night with Tom. Today I am on my own for the first time – I've been very lucky to have three fantastic (plus many more along the way) travel buds at different times on this trip so far.

So I joined the walking tour for my last couple of hours in Vilnius – I think you should generally do this when you first arrive but its still interesting none-the-less – and learned a little bit more about the vibrant city.

I think I'll go to Poland now.

Ciao Ciao.

View from St. Peter's Church

St. Peter's Church in the background

Riga Market Buildings

Cathedral in Vilnius (yes, it probably does have an actual name and I should know it)

Republic of Uzupio - the symbols below mean you should always smile, don't drive fast or go through life too quickly, enjoy art, and because the community is surrounded by waterways on three sides, be careful of this.

Is it weird to take photos of cemeteries? I hope not, otherwise you're in for a shock with the next blog installment too...

Castle

View from brekky in Uzupio

Tallinn

So I now have another love in my life... Tallinn, Estonia. Had a stellar time in this cool little city! We arrived a bit worse for wear on Sunday planning to spend just two nights there before moving on – we ended up staying four.

Our first night was very low key, after going out for a late lunch/early dinner we chilled back at the hostel – The Purple Goblin which comes very highly recommended – for the rest of the night.

Up early on our first morning and off to do the walking tour – the guide was fantastic, very humourous and full of energy with only the interesting facts talked about minus all the numbers that “only tour guides know and care about”. As Estonia is so small it's not uncommon to see celebrities or political ministers etc - she informed us that the Minister of Education just walked past us at one point and later on the next day we bumped into the Swedish Foreign Minister also.

Pretty much every city in Europe has an old town and they all spend a lot of time, effort and money in keeping them looking beautiful for the tourists – it works and they are all very charming, Tallinn not excluded. So we were kept very busy for our four days there and this was without even hitting the nightlife which is what Tallinn is quite well known for.

We headed to Hotel Viru whose 23^rd floor was used as KGB head quarters in Tallinn in the Soviet time to spy on hotel guests and staff. We learned about what life was like in the hotel during those times (only the best of everything), how microphones were placed pretty much everywhere so that private conversations could be listened in on (for what reason, we're still not sure, paranoia perhaps) and the lies and corruption that went on even though everyone knew about it (e.g. everyone knew that Hotel Viru was 23 floors but it was only ever referred to as having 22 floors – turning a blind eye type thing really). We had a quick peek inside a couple of churches and then got pointed in the direction of a restaurant for dinner – which was scrumptious as always.

Day two saw us head out in search of the Russian Markets which you could buy absolutely anything at, including memorabilia from the 1980 Olympics held in Moscow that were boycotted hence memrobilia still for sale now... While getting caught in the rain we inadvertently walked a large part of the Culture Kilometer while searching for the prison. The Culture Kilometer is actually 2.2km long and pretty much just follows the coastline and a bunch of dilapidated buildings. Finally we found Patarei Prison, now abandoned, but used right up until 2005 – hanging rooms and shooting rooms included.

Lunch was needed by this time and we'd been locally advised to mission it to a place called F-Hoone's located in the heart of the industrial zone in an old factory. No comment required here for you to know that it was amazing – spicy coconut soup with salmon and a meat platter for me, also cheap as chips. Back to the Russian Markets to purchase ingredients for dinner – first time cooking in 8 weeks! That afternoon we signed up to biking tour and explored outside of the Old City – presidential palace, gardens, song festival grounds, various monuments and other parks, beaches, and back to town along the scenic coastline.

We are still looking like we are never going to be finished being busy in Tallinn so we sign up for another night and plan the next day's schedule. It was all centered around our 2pm appointment to head to the shooting range... first up a 60m climb up stairs to the viewing platform of St Olive's church for panoramic views of the city. Our sick sides came out as we reveled in the Torture Museum and all the devices they had on display there. Lunch was Elk Soup and Mushroom Pies at a medieval themed restaurant on the Old Town Square – the staff are all dressed up in traditional garb and get right into character, this includes getting people to sing for their spoons, too scared to ask and put everyone to shame with my fantastic singing voice I decided we could forgo spoons for today. The Elk Soup is out of this world delish, and due to no spoon I have had a burnt tongue since then, too eager.

2pm was approaching and we were needed at the shooting range as a selection of guns ready to be shot were awaiting us. After a brief introduction of what not to do with a gun (it's common sense really isn't it?) we were straight into it. We had about seventy shots from a Rugar Pistol, two Glock 17s, a Desert Eagle .50, a Mosin-Nagant, an AK-47, and rounded things off with a Shotgun. Copious amounts of fun was had even though I was not the victor and managed only to stun my target with the Desert Eagle. Better luck next time. To wind things up for the day we escaped the rain by grabbing a cinnamon beer and heading to a place called Kiek in de Kok – which means Peek in the Kitchen but is funny to say anyway – for a tour of the tunnels that snake their way under the present day city. We thought we probably deserved a night out on the town and did so before begrudgingly leaving to head to Riga in Latvia.

KGB Headquarters - Hotel Viru

Beds for sixteen inside Paratei prison - but usually these rooms housed about thirty people at a time while they awaited their trial.

The Hanging Room

Song Festival Grounds

Old Town Tallinn as seen from St Olive's Church

Me and an AK-47 - I'm pretty much a professional. Old mate beside me just casually has a loaded gun in his cargo pants pocket too.

Everything traditional! Cinnamon beer in old school mugs.

Tunnels under the city.

Part of the Old Town Square

You can buy your passport at the Russian Markets.

Elk Soup minus the spoon

Everything traditional, again!

Tom won.

Romania & Finland with a dash of Denmark

After chatting to come locals on our train up to Brasov, Transylvania, Romania, we had hatched our plan for the next few days. First up, try not to get ripped off by a taxi driver. Fail. Flawless plan obviously. We headed out in search of food and found a cute little under-ground restaurant that was full-on Romanian – right down to the uniform – traditional Romanian food was ordered, delivered and devoured. Delicious as always. We had a lazy afternoon of wandering the streets and sampling the drinks before embarking on yet another walking tour. Most memorable moment: an Australian girl stating that she “hasn't seen any trannies yet, you know, like men dressed as women”? Tour guide: “Umm were you expecting to see that here?” “Yea, I mean we're in Transylvania”. I made absolutely sure he knew that NZ was not a part of Australia for that one. More Romanian cuisine along the restaurant lined main pedestrian street for dinner.

The next morning we headed off in search of Dracula. Our driver spoke zero English which was novel and frustrating all in one. First stop was the impressively detailed Peles (said Pelej) Castle – no photos allowed inside sorry, there are a few if you google it. Bran Castle next, by which time we had finally gotten through to our driver that we desperately needed a cash machine. Bran Castle is commonly referred to as Dracula's Castle but actually has nothing to do with him at all – despite some of the bad rap I had heard this castle given, I quite liked it, simple and just looked like a typical castle – these things were built hundreds of years ago after all they shouldn't be too flash! Feeling pretty castled out by this time we headed to Rasnov to view another “castle”. Ruins it turned out to be actually, and not unlike others we had already seen. In the heat we were a little bit over it but sucked it up and carried on. That evening we just chilled at the hostel and talked travel for a few hours with everyone else.

A train ride back to Bucharest was scheduled for the afternoon so we decided to continue our tourist roll that we were on and headed up the cable car to get panoramic views of Brasov. Having now sussed the taxi's out we caught one to a little fortified town – Prejmer -15km away for less than what we paid to get to our hostel (1.5km away) a couple of days before. We checked out the fortified village and church, I sprained my ankle apparently unnecessarily jumping over a creek, and we got shadowed by a Romanian boy on a bike for a while. It was an adventurous morning. Once we arrived in Bucharest, on board the scary communist looking train, we headed straight out for the Bucharest walking tour – we are getting walking-toured out now too. A delicious Romanian meal at the oldest restaurant in Bucharest and a chat with some locals saw the day out for us. Our time up in Romania was almost done and unfortunately I hadn't allowed enough time for us to see the inside of the Palace of the People – second largest building in the world - but there is a snap below of the impressive outside.

We had a scheduled night stop-over in Copenhagen, Denmark which was absolutely stunning and one of the better decisions made on this trip so far – despite now arriving into 13 degree weather... It wasn't all bad though and I welcomed in the other half of clothes I've been lugging around for the past 8 weeks. A quick nosey around the city and a very tasty meal down on gorgeous Nyhavn saw our time up in Copenhagen. For now.

We arrived in Helsinki, Finland around lunch time, checked in and – you guessed it – headed out in search of food! The trusty tripadvisor app directed us to a quaint local restaurant serving buffet style lunch full of soup, salmon and chicken. We wandered the city and I got sucked in by the markets at the harbour which were totally worth it. We wandered parks and snapped pictures of islands before meeting Dean back at the hotel and heading out to the Ice Hockey – first live game, and our [band wagon] team won!!! 7-1, fights and blood included. Apart from this day we didn't actually do a lot more in Helsinki, night time partying excluded (that took care of the mornings too), except spend time with Leish and Simon who'd made their way over from Malmo in Sweden.

We've now headed on to Tallinn in Estonia where I will tell you about how great I think this place is next time.

Main Square - Brasov.

Peles Castle 

I have vowed to take more photos with me in them - me at Bran Castle. 

Favoured mode of transport in Romania... 

See, getting better, Me and Brasov. 

Fortified village in Prejmer.

Just a little place I like to call home; the current Parliament building of Romania and second largest building in the world (photo doesn't do it justice) - The Palace of the People, Bucharest.

Nailed it - Nyhavn, Copenhagen.

And me in a photo once more for good measure, Helsinki, Finland.

Jokerit! Jokerit! Jokerit!

It's all fun and games until someone gets hurt. Felt bad taking this photo but there was blood everywhere!!!

Bulgaria

I never know how to begin the next blog... so just think of it as starting another chapter in a book if you've been reading the other ones...

We finally slipped into a slumber in the lounge of the hostel in Sofia only to wake a couple of hours later surrounded by about 100 people eating breakfast. We inconspicuously got ourselves ready for the day and headed out for the walking tour. Our entertaining guide did very well given the canvas he had to paint for us – we were less than impressed with Sofia unfortunately. That night when Tom arrived we decided we might like to head to town for a while – it was dead silent outside and ended with me declaring “we are leaving tomorrow”. So after bidding farewell to Helen (hope it's not too bad back there in London town, just remember someone has to be the breadwinner!) I “expertly” gave Tom the quick version of the walking tour and we departed for Veliko Tarnovo.

VT is a beautiful little city settled in a valley in Northern Bulgaria and was the capital in the Second Bulgarian Empire. We headed out to do a little bit of city exploration and taste the local food and beer. It was all brilliant, as usual. The next day we got up and headed out on a tour we had signed up to. First stop was a village that had been created for tourists to showcase a typical Bulgarian village. We then off roaded for a couple of hours to reach the abandoned “UFO” building – Bulgaria's largest ideological monument to Communism. We broke into it and looked around for a couple of hours – it took 6 years to build, opened in 1981, cost 7million Euro's and was used for about 8 years until the fall of communism. It has now been sitting idle for the last twenty odd years becoming increasingly dilapidated as looters have taken their share (including the 30tonnes of copper that was once the roof) and the elements have destroyed it further. We climbed the 32 flights of ladders up the inside of the tower and drunk in the 360 degree views. For more and better photos take a look at this link. http://humanplanet.com/timothyallen/2012/02/buzludzha-buzludja-bulgaria/

Following this we think we went to a monastery but can't be too sure as all we did was walk through some building and out the other side before walking back through and grabbing some beers and dinner at the restaurant. A quick look around the fortress was first up for us the next day before wandering around the picturesque city that is VT on a walking tour.

That afternoon we caught a bus to Varna – a beach town on the coast of the Black Sea. I concede (especially to you Dean, Christine & Mark) that this part of traveling is a holiday and we spent the next three days relaxing by the beach, partying at night and generally just enjoying the sunshine – for what I think will be the last time on this trip. We've just arrived in Romania this morning after a train ride that took three hours longer than it was supposed to – this wouldn't have been too bad but for those three hours we weren't in control of our passports. However, they came back eventually (after dreams from both of us that we may have been semi-woken in the middle of the night to just sleepily hand our passports over to a border control imposter) and I have decided that sleeper trains are definitely the way to go.

Sofia in Sofia

Aleksander Nevski Church - complete with 13 tonne bell

Traditional Bulgarian Village

Abandoned UFO Building

UFO from inside

What was once the meeting hall made of marble and red velvet

Me trying my hand at traditional wood carving - not well, I might add.

Ready to head out...

Varna!