We’ve heard great things about travel in these countries and we’re excited to experience this part of the world. A couple of days before we were scheduled to leave, we found that our flight from Paris to Sofia had been canceled. It took some heroic scrambling and persistence on Larry’s part but eventually we had a new flight to replace the canceled one. We’re flying Delta to Paris and then, Bulgarian Air from Paris to Sofia. If all goes well we should be in Sofia by Tuesday morning April 25, Atlanta time. We plan to spend time in both Bulgaria and Romania.
Itinerary:
The cities we hope to visit are:
- Sofia, Bulgaria
- Plovdiv, Bulgaria
- Veliko Tarovo, Bulgaria
- Sibiu, Romania
- Cluj Napoca, Romania (not shown on the map below)
- Brasov, Romania
- Bucharest, Romania
These destinations are all new to us and we expect a lot of surprises. The weather looks chilly and perhaps rainy but there will be are interesting sights to see, foods to try, and people to meet.
Transportation:
We’ll use a combination of train, bus, and rental car to get around. We know that at times, the travel will be slow-going and we have some complicated connections to make but it all adds to the adventure.
Language:
The official language of Bulgaria is Bulgarian.
As an example, this is the address for our hotel in Sofia:
ул. „Стара планина“ 6, 1000 София център, София
We’ve printed it out so that we can give it to the taxi driver when we catch a taxi from the airport in Sofia to our hotel in the city center. Hopefully, we can use Google Translate to communicate when we need it.
The official language of Romania is Romanian but the closest Romance language to Romanian is Italian. Maybe we’ll be able to understand some Romanian since I’ve been studying Italian and Larry is great with languages and understands some Italian.
Currency:
Neither Bulgaria or Romania are in the European Union. Each country has its own currency.
Bulgaria uses the Lev.
Romania uses the Leu.
Food:
It looks hearty and delicious. We’ll post photos along the way.
So, adventure awaits! If you’re following along, we’ll post every couple of days if the Internet is strong.
We had some technical difficulties and some of the photos from our previous posts have disappeared but we will be working to restore them.
Best Wishes!
Sharon and Larry