Showing posts with label Bulgaria. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Bulgaria. Show all posts
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
Fotos para la historia
Acabo de recibir unas fotos para la historia! Como ya os conte hace un tiempo, vi la final de la Eurocopa cuando visitaba Sofia, en Bulgaria. Alli me encontre con algunos espanyoles y vimos el partido juntos. Y ahora acabo de recibir esas fotos!!
Saturday, July 5, 2008
Plovdiv (Пловдив)
During our last day in Bulgaria, we visited Plovdiv. Plovdiv is a very old city (older than Athens or Rome) and has a nice Roman theatre and a nice medieval old town. The city is the second biggest in Bulgaria, but the historical center is quite small and can be visited in half a day.
This is what the Roman Theatre looks like!
And these are some photos taken in the medieval town.
Enjoy the weekend!!
This weekend, I will travel to the Baltic countries: Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia. I will be back on Wednesday or Thursday.
This is what the Roman Theatre looks like!
And these are some photos taken in the medieval town.
Enjoy the weekend!!
This weekend, I will travel to the Baltic countries: Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia. I will be back on Wednesday or Thursday.
Friday, July 4, 2008
Rila Monastery (Рилски манастир)
During our second day in Bulgaria, Felipe and I went to Rila Monastery, a nice monastery in the middle of the mountains which was included in the UNESCO World Heritage List in the early eighties.
It took around 2 hours by car from Sofia to get to the monastery. The trip started using wide road and little by little we got into the mountains. The entrance already showed there was something beautiful hidden inside the walls.
And this is what was hidden, a superb church and a tower. The view when you get there is impressive. With the mountains as the perfect background, the colourful and densely decorated church is really beautiful.
And the tower looks quite nice too!
Everything was full of religious pictures like this one:
This is the chimney in the monastery kitchen. It looked quite curious. The walls were so dark!
On the other side of the monastery, there was another gate and behind it there was another small building with some restaurants.
In the end, this day trip to the mountains and to this superb monastery was completely worth it!!
It took around 2 hours by car from Sofia to get to the monastery. The trip started using wide road and little by little we got into the mountains. The entrance already showed there was something beautiful hidden inside the walls.
And this is what was hidden, a superb church and a tower. The view when you get there is impressive. With the mountains as the perfect background, the colourful and densely decorated church is really beautiful.
And the tower looks quite nice too!
Everything was full of religious pictures like this one:
This is the chimney in the monastery kitchen. It looked quite curious. The walls were so dark!
On the other side of the monastery, there was another gate and behind it there was another small building with some restaurants.
In the end, this day trip to the mountains and to this superb monastery was completely worth it!!
Thursday, July 3, 2008
Sofia (София)
As I told you in some of the previous posts about football, last weekend I went to Bulgaria with Felipe. I did not really know what I should expect of that country and what we could find there. When I thought about Bulgaria, I just thought about Hristo Stoichkov ;-)
Sofia turned up to be an interesting city. The historical center is really small and you can see everything in about one day. The interesting thing is that Sofia, or Bulgaria in general, is a place where many cultures got mixed: Turkish, Russian, Greek, Western European. Therefore, you are walking in some streets and you can see a bizantine church, a mosque and a synagogue in the same square... Interesting.
Bulgaria is still not used to tourism, at least the Eastern and Central parts of the country, and just a few people can actually speak some English. Besides, everything is written in cyrillic (e.g. Russian letters) so it can be a bit confusing for some people. However, the weather was great and prices were ridiculously low for westeners! You could drink half a liter of beer for less than one euro!! And for 5 euros you could have a proper meal!! Tomorrow, I will tell you about our trip to Rila Monastery, but I wanted to tell you that a shared taxi among 4 people hired for a 5 hours drive and a 2 hours wait cost exactly 15 euros per person!! Try that in the Netherlands...
So, let's proceed with some photos, as usual!
The first thing you notice is that you will have problems reading the names of the streets if you cannot read any cyrillic:
This nice building is the National Theatre. Soviet associated countries have always been famous for their support of culture.
This is Alexander Nevski Memorial Church, a very beautiful church in Russian style, which has become one of the symbols of the city.
And this is the view from the entrance:
This is the Russian church, which looked similar to the ones I visited in the Kremlin, when I visited Moscow in 2006.
This nice bizantine church is called Sveti Sedmochislenitsi Church and it was a bit off the center.
This church is called St. Nedelya and was just in the real real center of Sofia, just next to the Prime Minister's residence and the former Party House.
And this mosque is not far away! Behind it, the Baths of Sofia... However, my camera got broken and was the only camera we had at that moment... so I have not got any pictures of that beautiful building.
Finally, the women's market, a traditional street market when local people bought vegetables and other stuff. Quite authentic!
Off the city center, the city looked really poor and untamed, which made it also attractive! Just different from all Western Europe: so homogeneus!!
Sofia turned up to be an interesting city. The historical center is really small and you can see everything in about one day. The interesting thing is that Sofia, or Bulgaria in general, is a place where many cultures got mixed: Turkish, Russian, Greek, Western European. Therefore, you are walking in some streets and you can see a bizantine church, a mosque and a synagogue in the same square... Interesting.
Bulgaria is still not used to tourism, at least the Eastern and Central parts of the country, and just a few people can actually speak some English. Besides, everything is written in cyrillic (e.g. Russian letters) so it can be a bit confusing for some people. However, the weather was great and prices were ridiculously low for westeners! You could drink half a liter of beer for less than one euro!! And for 5 euros you could have a proper meal!! Tomorrow, I will tell you about our trip to Rila Monastery, but I wanted to tell you that a shared taxi among 4 people hired for a 5 hours drive and a 2 hours wait cost exactly 15 euros per person!! Try that in the Netherlands...
So, let's proceed with some photos, as usual!
The first thing you notice is that you will have problems reading the names of the streets if you cannot read any cyrillic:
This nice building is the National Theatre. Soviet associated countries have always been famous for their support of culture.
This is Alexander Nevski Memorial Church, a very beautiful church in Russian style, which has become one of the symbols of the city.
And this is the view from the entrance:
This is the Russian church, which looked similar to the ones I visited in the Kremlin, when I visited Moscow in 2006.
This nice bizantine church is called Sveti Sedmochislenitsi Church and it was a bit off the center.
This church is called St. Nedelya and was just in the real real center of Sofia, just next to the Prime Minister's residence and the former Party House.
And this mosque is not far away! Behind it, the Baths of Sofia... However, my camera got broken and was the only camera we had at that moment... so I have not got any pictures of that beautiful building.
Finally, the women's market, a traditional street market when local people bought vegetables and other stuff. Quite authentic!
Off the city center, the city looked really poor and untamed, which made it also attractive! Just different from all Western Europe: so homogeneus!!
Tuesday, July 1, 2008
29th June 2008. A date to remember!
Yes, we finally made it!!! Yesterday, Spain won its second EuroCup!! The previous one was won in 1964, by people like Gento, Zoco, Amancio... let's say... by legends... I think this new generation, Casillas, Xavi, Cesc, Villa, Torres, will be as famous as those! The good point is they are still really young and a good long-lasting group can be created.
Well, I watched the match in Sofia, Bulgaria. I went this weekend to visit Bulgaria (Sofia, Plovdiv and Rila Monastery) and I was still there for the match. Some locals told us where we could go for big street screens and we went there. I was wearing my Spanish jersey and some Spanish people saw it and came to talk to us at some point. I watched the match with Felipe, a French guy from the hostel (he came travelling from Egypt through the Middle East) and a guy from Barcelona who had just started his motorbike trip from Barcelona to Iran! And surrounded by Bulgarian people everywhere. At the beginning, I didn't know if they would support Spain or Germany, but soon I saw they were quite neutral or supportive for Spain, which was nice!
In the morning, when I arrived in the airport, many Dutch told me things like "Viva España!". They were really happy because we defeated Russia and especially, Germany. Later, in the train, I could browse the local press and this is the result:
Appart from the mis-spelling of some words, you can see they really supported Spain yesterday!
This morning in ESTEC, it was kind of the same, many people told me supportive things (because of my football T-shirt...). Besides, somebody in my corridor had put a little Spanish flag with a little bull in the middle in every Spaniard's office door!! hahaha... I was really surprised this morning when I saw that flag on my door! And another guy hung a Spanish scarf in his door knob! Not bad for the European Space Agency! :-)
And yesterday, many people were celebrating our victory in our usual football pub in Leiden, Bad Habits. They were kicked out of the pub after 2am! This is what it looked like during the match:
(These last two photos are courtesy of Paula Saameño. Gracias Paula!)
Can you recognise yourselves amongst the people there? Live some comments telling us your experience! ;-)
So, finally, we could and still can celebrate something important. PUDIMOS! :)
Well, I watched the match in Sofia, Bulgaria. I went this weekend to visit Bulgaria (Sofia, Plovdiv and Rila Monastery) and I was still there for the match. Some locals told us where we could go for big street screens and we went there. I was wearing my Spanish jersey and some Spanish people saw it and came to talk to us at some point. I watched the match with Felipe, a French guy from the hostel (he came travelling from Egypt through the Middle East) and a guy from Barcelona who had just started his motorbike trip from Barcelona to Iran! And surrounded by Bulgarian people everywhere. At the beginning, I didn't know if they would support Spain or Germany, but soon I saw they were quite neutral or supportive for Spain, which was nice!
In the morning, when I arrived in the airport, many Dutch told me things like "Viva España!". They were really happy because we defeated Russia and especially, Germany. Later, in the train, I could browse the local press and this is the result:
Appart from the mis-spelling of some words, you can see they really supported Spain yesterday!
This morning in ESTEC, it was kind of the same, many people told me supportive things (because of my football T-shirt...). Besides, somebody in my corridor had put a little Spanish flag with a little bull in the middle in every Spaniard's office door!! hahaha... I was really surprised this morning when I saw that flag on my door! And another guy hung a Spanish scarf in his door knob! Not bad for the European Space Agency! :-)
And yesterday, many people were celebrating our victory in our usual football pub in Leiden, Bad Habits. They were kicked out of the pub after 2am! This is what it looked like during the match:
(These last two photos are courtesy of Paula Saameño. Gracias Paula!)
Can you recognise yourselves amongst the people there? Live some comments telling us your experience! ;-)
So, finally, we could and still can celebrate something important. PUDIMOS! :)
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