Sofia, Bulgaria – Travel Photography

We took a night train from Istanbul to Sofia, Bulgaria – our first proper night train complete with beds and everything.  But no one prepared us for the rude wake up calls for customs.  And Im not just talking about a tap on the shoulder and show me your passport.  NO. We had to wake up, disembark the train, walk and stand in lines at the Turkish customs.  Then an hour later, we were re-awoken for the Romanian customs.  We stood stock still on the tracks for what seemed like hours.  Now we know what to expect!

Despite the long sleepless night and our hour and a half delay getting in, we finally arrived to Sofia and were greeted by our sweet couchsurfing host.  That day we just chilled at her place, had a delicious lunch, took a nap and then went to a ska punk show in the park.

The next day we set out to see the city.  So far in Europe, we can usually get by knowing Spanish – in that between our two languages we can decipher signs and words enough to know whats going on.  But the Bulgarian language uses a completely different alphabet, the syrillic alphabet so we were at a complete loss!  You can see some words on this building.

Some of the sights to see is the statue of St. Sophia, the mosque…

the synagogue….

the Presidential Palace…

and the National Art Gallery… which turned out the be one of my favorite things.

The building inside is just gorgeous.  I was in love with this one photography exhibit.  This guy travelled all over the world around the 1920’s and took photos of the cities and the people.  I wish I knew who the photographer was but of course the only poster for the exhibit was in syrillic and of course the museum doesn’t have a website. grr.

Also, this painter is a new a favorite artist – Sultana Souronjhon

Yeah, just tried to google some info on this painter and NOTHING comes up.  Whats with this!? Oh well, here’s some more pretty interior pictures.

This is a little Russian church.  The outside is soooooo gorgeous, it makes me really want to go to Russia!

Alexander Nevsky Cathedral.  The inside seemed to be gorgeous, all the ceilings were intricately painted, however the lights were not on so it was hard to see anything :(

The Eagle Bridge.

We are now in Budapest, staying with couchsurfers.  We just cooked our infamous jambalaya for them – they have the most amazing apartment full of gorgeous chandeliers and antique furniture, Ill try and take some good pictures! Ive got lots of good things to blog about – Romania was AMAZING! But our internet has been very intermittent so SORRY! Hopefully tomorrow Ill get some of Romania done so keep checking back! Or go read Martin’s travel blog because he’s got more done!