2022 in Bulgaria (leaving Sofia)
leaving the Balkans and hoping to come back soon
2022-10-10 23:59 // updated 2026-03-17 10:50
October 9, 2022 : the Balkan sightseeing trip came back to Sofia, Bulgaria, after 8 days around southeastern Europe (Yugoslavia and Albania):
"the last sightseeing walk"
after a night's rest at Hotel Vega, we had a sightseeing morning walk throughout downtown Sofia:
- St. Alexander Nevsky Cathedral
- an "eastern right-worship" church hall-mark
- Ivan Vazov National Theatre
- did a folksy "ring hop" with the sightseeing group at the fore of this building!
- Council of Ministers
- while a "changing of the guard" was happening
- Serdika
- last bits of a Roman city
the sightseeing leader also talked about "Communist" times:
- how Bulgaria was more "Soviet Union" rather than "Yugoslavia"
- in the end, Bulgaria "did its own thing" throughout the Cold War, lining up with neither
"leaving"
- a bittersweet cool down after a long ring around this odd bit of the world
- saw a McDonald's branch with its name in Bulgarian Cyrillic at the last gasp of the trip!
- then, rode on the town's underground: the Sofia Metro!
- the three o'clock afternoon flight would stop over in Warsaw, Poland (nothing much happened there) before making another flight to go home