Yesterday we were in “Little Vienna” and today set out to explore Bucharest or “Paris of the East” as it was once known. Definitely noticed more of a classic European feel in all aspects of the culture as soon as we crossed the border. First stop was the Romanian Athenaeum. Home to the George Enescu Philharmonic. Unfortunately tickets to see the inside are quite challenging to acquire so we missed out this time.

Revolution square. Formerly known as Palace Square before the communists renamed it in 1989.

Statue of King Carol 1. I only learnt later in the day that he was the first elected king of Romania after Alexander Cuza was overthrown by a coup d’ etat in 1866. This statue only dates from 2007 as the original was destroyed in 1948 by the communists.

Some dude.

Vintage toy collection in the National History Museum.

Gio was pleased to have spotted a “real auto-mobile”

Heavy is the head.

I’ve seen the real Trajan column in Rome twice now but somehow seeing the replica here broken down into segments gave me much better appreciation of the size and details.

I had read about the restaurant Caru’ cu bere online as it has over 40k google reviews. We weren’t going to stop in as it was fairly pricey of course. However as we lingered outside in the street the maitre de ushered us in so seriously we didn’t feel we could resist just a coffee! Then we saw that a pot of beer was the same price as an espresso so figured, why not. Definitely the most stunning restaurant I’ve stepped foot inside. Gio said it looked like a church.

My ragamuffins really dressed for the occasion too.

Church of the Stavreopolos. Originally 17th century. Has had some restoration due to an earthquake since.

“Mum! Get a picture of me with this great big whoppin’ ice cream!”

Church of St. Anton

Manuc’s Inn, Oldest Hotel in the City.

After this we had an awesome Romanian feast for lunch. Pork knuckle, cabbage rolls, polenta, the whole works. The portion sizes were more generous than we have experienced up until now though so it ended up serving as dinner as well as lunch! Luckily we had a 40 minute walk to our next stop, the Palace of Parliament. Unfortunately my photos are rubbish as I couldn’t actually make the building fit in the shots. It’s still in use and difficult to secure tickets for a tour  A few facts I do know about the Palace of Parliament.

– completed in 1997 at a cost of 4 billion euros

– approx 700 architects designed it

– It’s visible from space

– consists of 1100 rooms

– heaviest building in the world at 4.10 million tonnes

– approx 3000 people died on site during its construction. Likely due to shocking working conditions under communist rule.

Cute arcade with glass ceiling.

Last day in Bulgaria! First stop was the rock hewn churches we had seen a model of at “Mini Bulgaria” yesterday. Monks carved the church, chapels and cells into the cliffside between the 12th-14th century. Some sections of the frescoes were still amazingly intact.

Next stop was Ruse which is a border town on the Bulgarian side of the Danube River. It’s known as “Little Vienna” due to its surprising neo-baroque architecture.

Crossing the Danube into Romania! 🇷🇴

We can’t recall ever seeing trams running over such neatly manicured lawns.

Dropped off the car to our bnb and then headed out for a couple of hours exploring the Old Town before bed.  Beautiful old buildings at every twist and turn. It reminded me of Bris Paris  and Vienna with a little Soviet stuff thrown in here and there.

Lovely 5 level bookstore.

That’s all we managed as well as a quick play at the park before bed. Will hopefully tick off most the must see locations tomorrow!

Amadeus loved having his own little bed in the hallway last night and only woke once as a result!

Amazing given it’s been upwards of 5 times a night, minimum, this trip. This combined with a really good shower (by European standards) had me feeling extremely equipped for a big day out exploring the lovely Velika Tarnovo.

It was the coolest day of the trip thus far, with a top of 20, very little sun and very few other tourists to contend with. This was predominantly due to it being a Monday-  so like Sundays – nearly everything is closed.

There’s beautiful views from any given point around the old town.

We made our way up to the Tvaraset Fortress expecting to encounter big tour groups but had the place practically to ourselves.

The church within the walls is full of hideous murals.

Gio spotted “Little Bulgaria” in the distance from the Fortress walls and decided he was happy to add the extra steps into his day to fit it into our itinerary (he clocked up close to 17k today!). Little Bulgaria is much the same as Cockington Green in Canberra but as we have visited 70% of the sites that the models are fashioned after in the past week – we really enjoyed seeing them again in miniature form.  I won’t bore you by sharing  pictures of them here though.

Gio and Noelle were thrilled with the trains of course!

Absolutely loved spotting these locals ladies catching up for a gab at 2pm on a Monday afternoon with a litre of beer each and a bag of dried pretzels in the park.

Church of the Nativity of the BVM.

Noelle practicing her “broadway lampost lean”.

Gorgeous cardigans and sweaters.

I’m not much of a shopper but was disappointed that this store was closed today!

Despite the ground we covered it seemed like a very lazy day. We have just realized we are well into the second half of our trip and not feeling at all ready to make the journey back home. The kids are traveling so well. So far no one has been homesick which is remarkable!

Thankfully when I’m sick of wrangling Amadeus of a morning there’s always Jesse, Gio and especially Noelley to love him! Today was another driving day so we packed up and hit the road – the kids with handmade Bulgarian dolls in hands

Beautiful Bulgarian flag rippling in the wind.

First stop was the Shipka Memorial Church. Built in the Russian style in 1902 to commemorate the lives of the soldiers who died fighting for the Liberation of Bulgaria from the Ottomans. Jesse and I were mesmerised, definitely makes us keen to get to Russia one day!

Next stop was the National Memorial at St Nicholas Peak. Funded by the Bulgarian people’s and completed in 1934.

In the background you might spy the Buzludzha Monument. Truth be told when I first considered coming to Bulgaria this was one of the sites I was most keen on seeing. However a combination of cranky kids with motion sickness, winding un kept roads and a 24/7 guard preventing anyone from exploring the inside made me decide to settle for these photos 12k away. It’s definitely worth a quick look on wiki, it’s the pinnacle of brutalist architecture in my opinion!

Next up was the Etar Ethno Village. Completed in 1964 it’s filled with artisan crafts people – furriery, cutlery makers, potters, silversmiths etc. Kids loved it – in particular the waterwheels.  Noelle was all over the ins and outs of water powered wheat mills!

From here we made it to our accommodation in Veliko Tarnovo. Had a relaxed Sunday evening and are ready to tackled the sites in the morning!

Greetings from Plovdiv! Plovdiv is said to be the oldest continuously inhabited town in all of Europe! We got off to another early start and consequently had the old town entirely to ourselves for the first hour or so which was wonderful. The kids loved spotting all the colorfully painted buildings.

Hisar Kapiya gateway.

Another ancient theatre. Couldn’t be bothered paying entry given the kids have been to 2 already in the last few weeks!

The gentlemen in the background ran into his shop to gift the kids lollipops as they walked past. As if they needed anymore sugar this holiday! Side note: I love that in Europe it’s completely commonplace for the staff/owner of an establishment to be sitting down eating/drinking/watching the world go by – rather than needing to always pretend to be busy.

We went to walk through the “Balbinov House” however when we approached the ticket lady she informed us the house was closed to tourists as there was a concert on. However she went on to say that the concert was free and we were welcome to attend! It started 5 minutes after we sat down and thankfully all the kids were beautifully behaved. Something we never would have risked actually booking not knowing if it would work out for us to attempt taking 3 chatterbox children to a recital!  The classical pianists were all brilliant and the opera singer nearly brought down the the house.

Noelle has been keen to show off her “frong muscles” so hauled the backpack around most of the day.

Still loving these drinking fountains! Noelle’s never been so well hydrated.

Picnic in the park. Half these kids names were Alex and one of their mothers. Does seem to be the #1 name in Bulgaria across all ages and genders.

Gio opted for a fairy floss that rivaled the size of the one at the Dalby Show. He didn’t quite finish it all thankfully.

Random excavation sites like these are scattered all throughout the city. You can just wander through them at leisure.

I have struggled to find a Roman Catholic Sunday Mass option that fits into our driving itinerary tomorrow (majority of churches obviously are Orthodox) so we opted for the Vigil Mass at St. Louis. It started at least 8 minutes early and was all over by 6.20! Mind you there was only about 6 other people there.
We ended up being quite thankful it was a swift Mass as getting the bus back to our remote commy block was a fairly drawn out exercise. Jesse and I are now enjoying an excellent bottle of red from the local wine region here. Seems to be some of the best we have had so far. A few ended up down the drain!

Today was a bit of a rush to check out as I was keen to save at least $10 off our inner city parking. Bulgaria really hasn’t been as cheap as we were expecting. I’ve even capped the kids at 1 scoop of gelato per day!

We drove to the foot of Mt. Vitosha which is just on the outskirts of Sofia, looking over the city.
I hadn’t mentally prepared Gio for a 6k hike and Jesse had forgotten to get his espresso before we started out – so it took some encouragement for the first hour or so. After a feed break for Amadeus and enjoying the view everyone’s spirits were much improved. The waterfall was worth a look and all of the hike was in the shade which I’m definitely into! Oh and we only got a little lost once on the way down.

After I rewarded the team with their varying bribes of coffee for Jesse, a cookie for Gio and gelato for Noelle, we headed for Plovdiv.

Jesse stuck to the limit of 140k but it was very stressful dodging trucks doing 100 and plenty of others whizzing past us at who knows what speeds. Our apartment in Plovdiv is on the outskirts in another Soviet era apartment block.  I’m feeling the start of a cold coming on so we have had a fairly low key afternoon at the playground, grocery shopping, baking a cake and washing the car. Tomorrow will be another big day exploring Plovdiv Old Town so I was keen for the kids to have an early night.

What a wonderful day of sightseeing we have had around beautiful Sofia! Such a lovely city. I had no idea it was so old, they think it’s the 3rd oldest capital in Europe (after Athens and Rome) settled around 700 BC. We found it very easy to walk to all the main attractions, plenty of green spaces and bulk gorgeous Orthodox churches.

St. Nedeyla Church.

St. Sofia statue. Erected in 2000 to replace the previous statue of Lenin.

Grave of St. George. The church and ruins below date to the year 400.

Previous bathhouse now used as Regional History Museum. Absolutely beautiful building, un-fortunately the lighting here doesn’t showcase the colors.

Having a drink at the warm thermal spring bubblers outside the bath house.

St Nicholas Church.

St. Alexander Nevsky Church. Breathtaking frescoes inside.

Eagles Bridge

Church of St. Sedmochislenitsi

Rakija Museum

Noelle sorting out the drinking fountain.

Brutalist National Palace of Culture

Touching a segment of the Berlin Wall. I don’t think the kids grasped the gravity of the situation.

Just after this we decided to take the tram to see the Bulgarian Synagogue and Jewish Museum as I always find this fascinating (albeit gut wrenching). My phone had died so Jesse was in charge of navigation. The tram we jumped on was quite busy so Noelle and myself with Amadeus sat up one end with Gio and Jesse at the other with the pram. When it was time to disembark the door closed on Noelle and I. It seems the open door buttons are just for show as they proved entirely ineffective. And so I found myself jumping off the tram a long stop later with neither phone, pram, money or any nappy changing facilities. Thankfully the Bulgarian locals continued to prove be beyond friendly and accommodating. I crossed the road and confirmed with a lady waiting that the next tram was infact going back in the direction which I had just come. She went to great lengths to reassure me despite lack of English.  After we had completed our fare evasive trip back to where we were supposed to get off, I found Jesse had taken disappeared and I had a crazy Noelle to heard with no stroller or carrier for an indeterminable distance. I approached a bloke about my age and asked for directions to the synagogue: He decided he would walk me there rather than just point me in the right direction. When he discovered my predicament he insisted on letting me call Jesse via WhatsApp (go me for having managed to memorize Jesse’s Australian phone number after nearly a decade!) I got onto Jesse who was walking with Gio up to the next tram stop and made plans to liase back at the Synagogue. My new friend Ahmed still however insisted on walking us there personally. As we went along he explained he had moved to Bulgaria as he had paid someone 12 thousand euro under the impression he would be able to work here. Unfortunately it seems this was a scam and he’s been unable to legally work here for the past 13 months and is trying to sue this person despite having no funds for legal fees. He was such a kind soul and I couldn’t have been more thankful for his care and consideration, Hopefully his situation improves moving forward.

Once all the Johnsons were safely reunited we discovered there was a week long Jewish holiday in place that meant the Synagogue was closed after all. So we made our way back to our bnb to feed the kids some spag bol and sink a few beers. I found Jesse an even bigger (2.5L) local larger which he was pretty excited about!

After this we made our way to Sofia Central Park.

Possibly the highlight of my trip so far. I’ve always wanted to see the dudes in the park playing chess. Particularly speed chess. And here we are, even took our bottle of wine down so we could fit in with the the locals as they had a drink while watching the games. Gio and Noelle had a blast at the playground (European playgrounds go off after about 6pm!) I made great friends with Alex the reigning local champion at speed chess. He played a game in mine and Amadeus’ honour and won them both. The trash talk was both epic and mind boggling to a really bad chess player like myself.

Alex is a chemical engineer born and bred in Sofia. He has travelled a lot, when he was based in Brazil he would play chess for up to 12 hours straight at times. He assured me he never gets tired from playing chess as his “brain is accustomed to working for 14 hour shifts.” When I asked if all Bulgarians work this hard he was completely incredulous. “No! Other Bulgarians don’t work! They just drink coffee and beer all day!”

Below is my Bulgarian bestie Alex. He has been married for 40 years, however his wife and 2 daughters have been based in the U.S for the past 30 as “absence makes the heart grow fonder”.

National Theater just across the park.

Today was massive. We started with a nutritious breakfast from the local bakery in Sapareva Banya. Ultimately the kids ended up with chocolate croissants. Jesse and I wanted to try the national breakfast of Banitza and Boza. Basically banitza is a white cheese byrek style pastry and boza is a “fermented sweetened malt drink”. Sounded delicious to me in theory. The drink I can only describe as being like what one might get if they drained a can of kidney beans isn’t a glass and added sugar to that slimey stuff and called it a drink. Noelle was the only one who claimed to think it was ok. We ordered “meat pastries” not knowing they had hot dogs in them… All in all not a culinary highlight.

Noelle’s face after she spilt the Boza

My research told me the chairlift to the Rila Lakes hike opened at 8.30 but often had big lines of at least 20 minutes. However when we arrived at 8.30 we were informed the lift was closed for maintenance for an indeterminable period. This is probably the second biggest attraction in Bulgaria and I wasn’t prepared to miss it. However the walk alone is 10k. Having to walk to the chair lift drop off point was set to add an additional 7 grueling kilometers (return) up very steep gravelly terrain. I was prepared to do it but then spotted a Jeep coming back down the mountain. After some negotiations he agreed to take ourselves and all the other uncertain  walkers up the mountain and then return to pick us up. Turned out there was him and a few others cashing in on the opportunity. This was only going to cost us about $80 in total so I decided it was worth a crack.

What a wild ride! Myself riding shotgun with Amadeus and Noelle on my lap. Jesse and Gio crammed in on top of 8 others on the bench seats in the back. Some lovely Bulgarian woman ended up being entrusted to keeping Giovanni on her lap and inside of the vehicle as Jesse was right on the end struggling not to fall out the back. She must have held on tight as he didn’t seem worried at all when we finally made it to the top in one piece.

As always the pictures don’t do it justice.

Half way through the walk I was very grateful we opted for the crazy shuttle service as I really struggled today! Maybe 3 weeks of sleep deprivation is beginning to take its toll. At any rate we had our work cut out for us. It was definitely worth it though. Absolutely stunning. Up there with one do the most beautiful places we have been privileged enough to visit in our travels. On our way back down from the summit we bumped into some of our fellow Jeep survivors from earlier. They invited us along to their picnic once they had also seen the top but unfortunately we had to decline as the day really got away by the time we had worked out all the shuttle rigmarole.

They were a lovely Jewish Israeli couple who both work as tour guides there. We have exchanged details and they’ve insisted that when we make it to Israel we are to join their travel group free of charge! They were traveling with their 2 teenage daughters and a son Gio’s age.

We were all relieved when the drivers kept their word and returned to pick us up when we called them as I think poor Gio would have come undone with an additional 3.5k. By the time we made it back down the mountain it was nearly 4pm.

Made Jesse risk losing a kid through the windscreen to snap this shot of the light coming through the pine forest on our drive down.

Luckily dinner was so much better than breakfast!

We set out for Sofia which is about 1.5hrs drive but decided to stop in for an early dinner on the way into the city in order to avoid peak traffic. The little suburb on the outskirts we found was great. A lovely woman named Ivanka came and introduced herself and all her family while I was doing a roadside nappy change. She proudly informed that us she spoke 5 different languages! Making us feel utterly useless for not yet having mastered Hello and Goodbye in Bulgarian. Dinner was also a great experience with hearty, meat-heavy local fare and friendly service.

It’s sort of sad in a way to have everyone be so surprised that we would want to visit their country. So far we are finding Bulgaria is wonderful!

I ducked next door to grab some things from the supermarket for another batch of bol for Noelle. While I was there I asked the checkout guy for local wine recommendations. I don’t think he really drank much wine himself but was curious to know if I was visiting a friend. As it turns out (according to him) people only really buy bottled wine in Bulgaria if they’re visiting friends?

Our apartment is right in the city centre but this meant we really struggled with finding parking. It took nearly an hour of driving around before we found a parking facility that wasn’t full (and this was mid week at nearly 7pm!). As tired as we all were I couldn’t go back on my promise to get the kids an ice cream.  They had more than earned one after such a mammoth day.

After we had done this and were finally walking just a few minutes further to check into the bnb – poor Noelle started asking us to “just let her sleep in the car!”. I think she had given up all hope that her parents would manage to get her into a bed for the night at all. Glad she’s not adapting to the European schedule too easily! Kids up until 10pm is definitely not my jam.

Bad enough I’m up writing this after 10 while waiting on a weird European front loader to release our clothes and a bolognese to simmer so we don’t risk eating hot dog pastries again!

Greetings from Bulgaria! 🇧🇬
Today was a big driving day 3.5 hours across the border into Bulgaria, which has been absolutely beautiful thus far (our first impression was the picture above).

We were getting anxious it may have been a poor itinerary choice as quite a few people had been making negative comments about the country.
The border patrol took a lot longer to get through than the last one. I was starting to get worried when the customs officer put his gloves on and wanted to search the boot. (We hadn’t actually looked into the possibility of any bio-security restrictions like there is back home.) In the end I think the gentleman was more impressed about us importing 3 children into his country than the possibility of us carrying any contraband. He gave Jesse a pat on the back then ducked his head in to grin at the kids before waving us along.

First stop was Rila Monastery, founded by St. Ivan of Rila in the 10th century. I understand the main church and frescoes were completed in the mid 19th century. It’s Bulgaria’s #1 attraction and for good reason. It’s still fully functioning in the monastical sense therefore we had our work cut out for us keeping 3 little chatterbox Johnsons silent while we were inside the walls! I’ve shared a heap of photos because I couldn’t choose just a few. The colours and detail in the frescoes were mesmerizing.

The surrounding forest and misty mountains are very idyllic. As was this stream running just outside the walls.

Possibly 2 of the biggest flagstones I’ve ever come across in my travels.

We didn’t stay as long as I would have liked as the kids were keen to burn some energy after being in the car all day. A peaceful monastery wasn’t the right setting for such activities.

We decided to fit in a hike up the Stob Earth Pyramids. I had just noticed them pop up on google maps as being not so far out of our way to the bnb.

The short but steep climb only took us just under the hour to complete. Exceptional views, fairly certain we spotted some sort of black mountain cat on the way down which was very exciting! I’m holding out hopes that we also encounter some bears before the end of our trip.

The villages of Stob and Rila all had awnings made of grapevines.

Our bnb host didn’t speak any English but he put Bluey on for the kids which won them over instantly. The fact it was a Bulgarian dub didn’t bother them in the slightest. I think they deserved it after nearly 5 hours in the car today and not a single gelato stop!

This morning we took the short drive to Matka Canyon. Here we took a boat ride to the Vrelo Cave. Jesse’s normally more into caves than me – but even I thought this one was pretty cool. The lake/canyon were also stunning. We contemplated kayaking but Jesse still has PTSD from taking Noelle on a lantern boat in Vietnam so we decided to pick our battles.

Shocking photo I know but we so rarely have one with everyone in it at the same time.

Back to the accommodation to drop off the car and feed Noelle some Dahl and off we went in search of more Skopje oddities.

Hideous lions in front of the bridge to the Kale Fortress.

Weird hotel built in the shape of a boat on the canal.

At least this Lion knew it was ugly

From here we had a quick squizz at the Kale Fortress walls but the UV index was high and Gio was feeling pretty cooked so we decided to carry on to the Old Bazaar area. Jesse and I would have loved to get lost in there for hours.

It had a Super Turkish influence and that was reflected in all the jewelry, fashion, food etc that was available here. We hadn’t intended to stop for lunch just yet but I was watching a kebab man hard at work through his shop window when a local who was waiting in line to collect his lunch proudly informed me that this was “the only place in Skopje to eat”. By the looks of the traffic coming in and out of the joint I figured I could take his word for it. He hooked us up with a table within seconds and before we knew it an abundance of delicious food was delivered to us.

Shopska salad, cevappi (or whatever the Macedonian word for them is) beef goulash, peppers and the national dish “tavče gravče” which is white beans (similar to canellini) cooked in a clay pot. Everything was extremely yummy and we really didn’t need to eat for the rest or the day! All this only cost about $23!

Next we stumbled across the market hall. I’ve never in my life seen that volume of produce being turned over. Mind blowing given Skopje’ population is only about half a million people! The amount of peppers, tomatoes, beans, spices and fruit really was just mind boggling. I could have watched the transactions all day! However the kids needed to stretch their legs so we got some dried fruit and nuts to keep Gio going on our upcoming 10k hike and took our leave.

There is lovely natural spring water drinking fountains all over the city which the kids are loving!

Phillip II of Macedonia’s fountain. Another Skopje 2014 project special.

Skopje’s very own Arc de Triumph .

Woman Warrior Park.

Not sure why they called it this as they all looked like blokes to me! 🤷‍♀️ Jesse said he spotted one pregnant warrior statue but I must have zoned out by then.

Wandered over to the City Park which was really abandoned and run down.  But we did find a creepy old carousel so that was a win in Gio and Noelle’s books!

Below is a strange rotunda with the lyrics to David Bowie’s “Heroes” all over it. Not sure if that was commissioned? When in Skopje, it’s anyone’s guess!

Millennium Cross up on the mountain. Built in 2002 to commemorate 2000 years of Christianity in Macedonia.

Brutalist water fountain.

Orthodox Church of St Clement of Ohrid. Only built in the last 50 years but the paintings inside were seriously impressive! (Jesse got a sneaky photo)

That’s pretty well the end of our North Macedonian leg. Tomorrow we head on to Bulgaria! 🇧🇬