Bulgaria

On holiday in Bulgaria

Bulgaria is a little tourist town, but it deserves a journey of at least a week thanks to high mountains almost 3000 meters, gigantic caves, sandy coasts, content costs and picturesque villages. Furthermore, a holiday in Bulgaria can be easily combined with a journey in continental Greece, with the beautiful Greek coast a few hours by machine from Sofia. On this page you will find all the information about what to see in Bulgaria, how to move, when to go, what to eat, the costs, etc.! And you also tell you about our travel experiences.

Travel information

Bulgaria is located north of Greece, overlooking the Black Sea. From Italy, arriving in Bulgaria with his own car it is not a hypothesis so crazy, perhaps by exploiting the ferries that from Ancona or Bari lead to Albania and Greece. In the capital Sofia, however, many low cost flights and rental cars are cheap, so the Fly & Drive seems to me the most convenient hypothesis: find the auto to the best prices here .

For a trip to Bulgaria best to prefer summer when the climate is better to enjoy its mountains over 2000 meters and its coasts on the Black Sea. Even the late spring and early autumn are not bad to see the cities, Le Caves and campaigns without suffering the heat. In winter, instead, you can go skiing!

Prices in Bulgaria are low: there are double rooms for 25 euros per night even in August and generally there is no availability of accommodation.

To eat, prices are just as cheap: with 10 euros you have dinner eating in abundance! Half a liter of beer at the restaurant can cost a euro; In our travel itinerary in Bulgaria we found above all a lot of meat (stews, grilled, interior ...). Vegetarians will have to study the menu well (which are generally bilingual, even if the waiters often do not speak English).

Our trip to Bulgaria

We fly from Bologna to Sofia, an unusual route that Ryanair gave for a package of peanuts. We take this opportunity to visit Briefly Bologna: we go up on the terrace of the Basilica at 53 meters high, then we eat 76 Tortelli and see a canal that looks like Venice.

We arrive in Sofia, who does not have the monuments of Bologna and disruptures compared to many Italian cities - a sad common destiny in the world. On the other hand, the atmosphere we like a lot: in the streets of the Bulgarian capital, between Orthodox churches like that of St. Nicholas and Soviet palaces, you can breathe the air of the East.

Bulgaria is one of the poorest countries in the European Union. It has its coin, the "lever", which is worth half euros, and the average monthly salary is equivalent to a few hundred euros.
The central street of Sofia is very lively, full of people and bars, and in a crossbar we find A typical tavern. Here we suggest with a sausage (don't think badly), as well as with various vegetables and sauces. All delicious, very tasty! Adding a carafe of wine and a baklava, which is the typical sweet honey and walnuts from the specific weight of uranium, we spend 20 "lever" (10 euros) to head, not bad! 13 euros each, on the other hand, for the double in the friendly pub/guesthouse managed by a convinced opponent of hygiene. High season prices!

The next day with the car to Nolo we leave Sofia and head to the countryside. Between hills and cultivated fields it seems to be in the Bergamasco, also because all the cars are branded bg, but as soon as we cross the sagged villages we remind you to find us in fact in Bulgaria. We then seem to fall into another geological era when in those soft hills we discover the absurd caves. No, sorry, they are not simple caves, but underground worlds!

In the entrance to the Prohodna Cave there can be the Cathedral of Bergamo, while in the Dutthethka Cave you can transfer a whole neighborhood with so much of Esselunga, and remains space to run free dinosaurs. What an incredible place, out of time!

Near the cave of Devetashka there is the waterfall of Krushuna, which is splendid and can be admired from front and even from behind, if you scale scales of danger.

Happy to finally find ourselves traveling after the Covid, we find a hotel/restaurant and have dinner with typical Bulgarian stews. About Covid: Outside of Sofia, practically no one brings the masks, not even the waiters, not even indoors. We fall asleep heavy and satisfied.

In this area there would be other interesting destinations. In particular, the old Bulgarian capital of Veliko Tarnovo, not to mention other caves and temples and mountains. We leave Bulgaria, head south of Sofia to the Greek border (Promachonas customs) and then driving up to the white beaches of Calcid peninsula .

Let's go back to Bulgaria after about a week of peregrinations in Greece to continue our travel itinerary.

We arrive in the evening in the picturesque village of Melnik, which is at the beginning of Bulgaria, shortly after the customs of Promachonas. Melnik is tiny, but it is also the capital of Bulgarian wine. We taste it in a typical tavern, accompanied by animal interior (Cervella, Language and Tripe): all as good as disgusting! Returning to Bulgaria we feel almost at home, because we love simple and little tourist places.

We wake up in the lovely Melnik, where we take a ride between ancient and strange calanchi houses. Council in particular to climb into the side alleys, towards the castle: the ladders lead to splendid views.
Here in Bulgaria many we confuse us for local people, a little strangely because Bulgarians are generally big and hard - But perhaps, without realizing it, we are too. In Greece, instead, they immediately distinguished us as tourists, perhaps because they are more used to seeing them (in Lefkada the Italians eran more than the Greeks!).

We leave Melnik and drive up to the Rila mountains, among the highest peaks in Bulgaria. We take the chairlift and start the splendid trekking route of the seven Rila lakes, standing between 2000 and 2700 meters away. The views are great and the seven lakes actually are splendid. The landscapes seem almost alpine, even if the horses in the wild and certain prairies remember a little central Asia and my beloved Kyrgyzstan.

After five hours of walking, we reside in the chairlift, we take the car and drive to the nearby Sapareva Banya, a spa town at 900 meters of altitude where the Bulgarian tourists granted. After hot hydromassage, we eat typical delights at disrocie figures (half a liter of beer at one euro is a dangerous invitation to become alcoholics).

The end of the holiday is coming, but not for this reason we are less omanious to see the beauties of Bulgaria. We wake up to Sapareva Banya and go to admire his Geysir, who say is the hottest of Europe as well as the only one on the continent. Everything very nice, but Geysir, conveyed to a fountain, does not spray or water or steam, perhaps because the natural source is hyper-exploited by the various spa of Sapareva Banya. In short, he is the only geysir in the world that is not a geysir!

We therefore drive to the Rila Orthodox monastery, which stands in the middle of the mountains and is really scenic. There are some tourists, mostly Bulgarians, and the atmosphere is idyllic. The Rila monastery is the most important monument of Bulgaria.
Not far from the monastery the land pyramids of Stob, of the deep red gullies with curious shapes arise. To get to the panoramic point we walk for 40 minutes uphill under the scorching sun, asking us who makes you do it. The peculiar panorama repays however of fatigue, even if not with interests.

We resume the car and drive to Sofia, where we give you back as we had taken it, to the joy of the charterer. On the flight to Bologna we look at the 850 photos of the holiday. At the DiecexingShoesima I fall asleep as a ghiro and I start to dream of the wonderful experiences experienced in these 11 days between Bulgaria and Greece. What a figalty!

Other destinations in Bulgaria

We have divided the holiday between Greece and Bulgaria, but those who wanted to make a longer travel itinerary In the latter can find bread for his teeth.

Council in particular a circular itinerary. From Sofia to the Caves of Prohodna and Devetashka and the Krushuna waterfall, as we did. Then, instead of going back, continue to Veliko Tarnovo and from here to the Black Sea, to visit Varna and the whole coast continuing south.

From here you can go back to the interior, in the lively city of Plovdiv. From Plovdiv you can get to Melnik and resume the itinerary following us, with the Rila Monastery, the Stob pyramids and the Bulgarian mountains with trekking like that of the seven Rila lakes and close the circle (and the journey) to Sofia .

Whoever has more time, can venture into the far north of Bulgaria, visiting canyon and campaigns and even the Danube.

To conclude, Bulgaria is splendid! It is not that I would move, but for a week between immense caves, rustic countries, immaculate mountains and a little black sea is fine. And in the true Bulgaria, even if it is part of the EU, you feel traveling almost as if you went to an exotic country!
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