Bulgaria and Turkey 2006 - Sofia

From Worldtraveller

I flew to Bulgaria because it was cheaper than flying to Turkey, and I thought it would be a lot more fun to see a bit of ex-communist Eastern Europe then take a night train to Istanbul anyway. I arrived in Sofia on a warm March afternoon and set out to explore. Quite a pleasant place to wander was the park surrounding the National Palace of Culture. I spent a while there people-watching, photographing a decaying monument celebrating 1,300 years of Bulgaria, and looking at some market stalls.

Market in the park	The monument	Banya Bashi Mosque
Sofia street corner

Sofia is dangerous to walk around at night. Not because of crime but because the lighting is so dim and the pavements so cracked that you're almost guaranteed to trip up somewhere.

Ulitsa Vitosha on a wet evening

After a day and a half in Sofia I headed for Turkey. Buying a ticket for the night train to Istanbul required me to speak German - tricky because I'd recently spent four months in South America and kept lapsing into Spanish. It's only about 300 miles from Sofia to Istanbul but the train takes 12 hours, and when I got it it arrived six hours late. Border formalities take about a week to complete but the train was comfortable and I wasn't in a rush.

Waiting for the train to go	Leaving Sofia for Istanbul	Speeding through Bulgaria
A train passes on its way back to Sofia	Dimitrovgrad station

Bulgaria and Turkey 2006: Sofia / Istanbul / Side and the eclipse / Pamukkale / Istanbul again / Plovdiv