In praise of Sofia, Bulgaria

I arrived in Sofia at nightfall, not sure what to expect. It was noticeably quieter than Bucharest, which I’d left 10 hours ago that morning, and the calm was nice — though in an unfamiliar city, quieter can also mean sketchier. A fact I was reminded of when I realized the way out of the station was down an escalator into an underpass with just one shop open, and a mini casino. Well, I only had to get a few blocks to my hostel, and then I could reassess in the morning.

I could have skipped the city altogether. You can roll right through Bulgaria on your way from Bucharest to Istanbul, but I’d decided to make a detour and spend some time in the capital, Sofia. There wasn’t any particular reason for this — I don’t know anyone from Bulgaria, I don’t know anyone who has been to Bulgaria, I hadn’t been prompted by a compelling travel article about the place… honestly my only connection is that I once went to a Bulgarian restaurant in Grenoble, France, and it was a nice time. (Hit the subscribe button for more great travel planning tips.)

Anyway, I can only conclude that you should get all your travel ideas by going to restaurants, because my initial misgivings were totally off-base. Sofia was the perfect balance between “real city” energy (unlike old-town Brasov) and laid-back (unlike Bucharest). It’s not exactly full of sights, apart from approximately 5 million billion churches. But it’s got quiet tree lined streets, fun cafes and local shops, it’s near mountains that you can see as you look down the street, there’s working public transport (that you can pay for using contactless, do you know where you can’t do that? Frigging Paris), the drivers obey road rules… Oh and it’s super cheap by European standards. Basically, if you want somewhere to chill out for a couple of days in your crazy cross-Europe train trip, Sofia is a solid option.

Legit street trees, gets a thumbs up from me

Things I saw on the train from Bucharest to Sofia

Waiting in Bucharest station

Did you know that Romania has an oil industry? Yeah me neither until I looked out the window and think, are those… oil wells? Turns out, the oil from Romania played an important role in WW1 and 2.

Perhaps more stereotypically, as the train goes through a level crossing the first vehicle in the queue, in front of all the cars, is a horse-drawn farm cart with hay in it.

Speaking of stereotypes, the train out of Bucharest has quite a few Brits on board. All sitting in the same part of the carriage. None of us talking to each other, even when interesting things happened like the Romanian border police collecting all our passports and getting off the train. (I later spotted some of the same people on the street in Sofia and we all politely pretended to not recognize each other. Honestly, what a nation.)

Zoe’s post office reviews, from Budapest to Istanbul

On this trip, I’ve been writing postcards as I go. Initially I thought I’d hang onto them all until I get to Australia and post from there, but then in Budapest I decided I’d give the local post office a go. And since then I’ve done a post office trip in every city I’ve stayed in. Here are my reviews.

(“Did the card actually get to its recipient” — arguably the main function of the postal system — is not a criterion, because it’s far too early to judge that. I’m still in Istanbul for goodness sake.)

Budapest

This was my first post office, and I approached with trepidation. Would there be some obscure queueing system that I would get yelled at for misunderstanding? Would I be waiting all morning? Would I be able to explain that I would like a stamp for this postcard to the UK?

Lol. There was one person ahead of me in the queue. The lady behind the counter both smiled at me(!) and spoke perfect English. I regretted having only 2 cards to send, given how successful the exercise was.

The night train from Budapest to Brasov

The 19.10 overnight train from Budapest to Bucharest, calling at Brasov, consists mostly of seated carriages, with just a couple of Romanian couchette and sleeper cars attached at the front. I loiter on the platform as long as possible, awkwardly eating my dinner from McDonald’s (don’t judge) while leaning against a wall — with a scheduled time of nearly 12 hours to Brasov, I want to enjoy non-train-life as long as possible. Most of the passengers are getting onto the seated carriages, some with heavy bags and suitcases, one guy with 6 tins of beer in a plastic bag and seemingly nothing else.

6 things I loved about Brasov

1. Everyone outside Romania who heard I was going to Brasov, in actual real life Transylvania, cracked some kind of joke about visiting Dracula. Brilliantly, Brasov itself is well aware of being a tourist destination — as a well-preserved medieval town founded by Germans in a beautiful natural setting, thank you very much. Seriously, the place is tasteful. I think I saw more “let’s go party with vampires!!!!!” tat within 5 minutes of wandering around Bucharest old town than I did in Brasov.

Get ready to enjoy that town square cafe lyfe

So you want to go from London to Budapest by train…

…It’s totally doable, and feels adventurous in a gentle, fun way.

So the thing about a lot of “I got there by train” articles  in newspapers is that you find out in the small print that the author was comped the trip and they did not once have to deal with a train company website or railway station ticket machine, or they do railway stuff professionally, or they travelled in first class. So, for the rest of us, this is how it actually works. Don’t necessarily follow all steps, unless you want the full Zoe can’t-take-her-anywhere experience.

Preparing for my lil Big Trip

A week from now, I’ll be waking up in Paris. A week tomorrow, I should be rolling into Budapest on the sleeper train. Beyond that? I have an interrail pass and a flight to catch in Istanbul in mid-April… I am so excited.

Eeeeeee! I was so excited when this came in the post

Hellooooo from Instagram

Welp, it’s been nearly a year since I wrote anything here (oops) but if you’re interested, I have recently gotten myself an Instagram account like all the cool kids. If writing on wordpress is “blogging” and twitter is “micro-blogging”, then I guess what I’m doing on insta is “meso-blogging”*, in the sense of being a bit like my “postcard from” series — I quite enjoy the photo+a paragraph format. If that sounds fun to you, check it out here.

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* Sorry, physics joke (I’m not sorry.)

Postcard from the Dragon’s Back and Shek O, Hong Kong: another side of the island

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Hello from Hong Kong! I’m here for a few days on my way back to Italy from Australia, and it has been an excellent stop over. While here, I have been following a new year diet of large meals plus multiple snacks every day (diiiiiim suuuuuum) but today I temporarily tore myself away from the food to go hiking.

Yes, hiking in Hong Kong. I didn’t realize you could do that, either.

The Dragon’s Back ridge is on the eastern end of Hong Kong island, and the hiking trail that runs across it is super popular, for good reason. On a clearer day, you’d get views across to the massive apartment buildings of Kowloon, but even on a hazy day like today I saw smaller islands dotting the bay, quiet beaches and granite boulders. (I also saw a couple wearing broad-brimmed sun hats walking the opposite direction to me, and I couldn’t resist saying “hi” to them, knowing exactly what accent they’d reply with; it’s pretty easy to spot Australians from a distance once you know the tells.)

At the southern end of the trail, I hopped on the bus to Shek O, a beachside town that at this time of year was mostly host to couples taking engagment and wedding photos next to the ocean swirling against the shore.

PS: More postcards from…

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Practial notes for future reference: I followed these very useful directions to walk the trail north to south, starting at Chai Wan MTR station. The only thing I would add is that the walk along the road after you’ve left the cemetery isn’t looooong but the trail head isn’t quite as close as I would have guessed — you can’t miss the trailhead though, so just keep walking.

The trail over the ridge is quite exposed to sun, you’ll want to wear sunscreen and carry plenty of water. There’s nowhere on trail to get water. I was there on a warm winter’s day and I wish I’d brought a full litre of water rather than 500 ml.

I found myself walking against the flow of traffic on trail, not sure if that was because of my timing or because more people start at the southern end and walk northwards. I did the trail on a Monday, it was certainly populated, but not ridiculously so. The weekend might be a different matter…

When you get to the southern end of the trail, there are bus stops for buses to Shek O and Shau Kei Wan MTR station. While Shek O is within walking distance of the southern trailhead, it’s along a winding road without shoulders much of the way so you’re better off catching a bus.

A photo a day in December: days 26-31

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Happy new year! I am chilling out at my parent’s house, having stayed up until 2 last night and then driven the 400-ish km from Albany to Perth today — in fairness, I only drove half of that, but at any rate I am cactus. Also, I never got around to taking a photo on the 27th, so I only have 5 photos to finish off the photo a day  challenge…

• Perth skyline. I would love to know what the story is about the vacant block I took the photo from: it’s been empty since I was a kid but it must be worth an absolute fortune;
• A paperbark tree near Ocean Beach in Denmark;
• Rubbish bin, park bench, and very bright shed in Kojonup;
• Rocks and the ocean at Cosy Corner beach, near Albany;
• Albany itself — or at least, Middleton beach.

So there we have my 30 photos in 31 days. Actually, I took 213 photos in 31 days, most of those with the hope of getting a good shot to post here. (And, ok, some dorky selfies.) I definitely wouldn’t have taken so many photos if I weren’t challenging myself like this (neurotic over-achievers represent!) and I definitely got some decent shots I wouldn’t otherwise have, so I’m calling this photo-a-day malarky a success.

PS: You can check out my other posts from the challenge here