Back to Bulgaria - Part 1

With Lenin!

Well, seems it has been a little while since I wrote anything here, I guess post Rio I haven't done anything that exciting - a couple of months lazing around on Tenerife, then back to the UK for a family Christmas. All fun but not really worth blogging about. I'll be off on another adventure at some point, honest, but first a small taster, back to Bulgaria for a week or so.

First off, a day of wandering around Sofia, and this time I have brought my camera! On the minus side it is absolutely perishing, extreme weather has hit central Europe, and daytime temperatures plunge to minus ten and below. Locals are photographing the snow, I go for the various local landmarks, the Banya Bashi Mosque and surrounding hot springs, and numerous Roman remains - since I was last here, a really substantial bit of Roman street and surrounding buildings have been covered by a glass roof, ideal for this weather.

Banya Bashi Mosque - means 'many baths'.

I finally make it to the Museum of Socialist Art, is it worth it? Yeah, I would say so, most cool to see the massive statues of Lenin et al, and the selection of portraits and so forth inside are interesting too. I also liked the fifteen minutes of so of propaganda films, mostly featuring former leader Georgi Dimitrov, including his embalmed body being laid to rest in a mausoleum - and then, as a finale, footage of the mausoleum being blown up! Apparently they unceremoniously cremated his body as well.

So cold.

Much eating ensues - I've persuaded my mate Chris to come along, and we go for Italian food near the museum, there still seem to be Christmas decorations here. Then we remember that Eastern Orthodox Christianity uses a different calendar, a quick check and it turns out to be Christmas Eve! Apparently local custom is to eat a large vegetarian meal, featuring an odd number of courses... well, being foreigners we stick to meat, more of which, and much beer, arrives that evening at the cheap and cheerful Happy Bar and Grill. Well, this was all good fun, if cold. And tomorrow, I'm off to Borovets, a hundred kilometres or so to the south, for skiing - should be plenty of snow at least!

Roman street, complete with plumbing and sewer.

Photos to go with this post can be found here.