Andrea Hearts Traveling

The only reason I went to Budapest was to be able to get a cheap flight to Sofia since I couldn’t pass through Serbia because I needed a visa. So, my first time in Sofia was a quick night stop on my way to Macedonia but still managed to go out and check out a little bit of the city. My hostel was like 2 km from the main area so I decided to walk and see what I could find.

I walked along a main road until I got to a beautiful park with a nice fountain, people walking around and teenagers skating. I found a small piece of the Berlin wall, and a communist monument.

When I got to the end of the park I was very impressed by what I saw, at the top of buildings there were big Coca-Cola, Subway, and Mc Donald’s signs and I wondered if this was going to be a western fast food influenced country and guess what? It was.

On my second visit to Sofia I took the free walking tour and was able to piece together what I had seen on my first day and understand Bulgaria a little bit better.

There was a lot of history and blah blah blah about the different empires that came to bulgaria such as the ottoman, lots of dates, and a lot of information that came into one ear and went out the other. The two things that I remember are that Bulgarians kind of didn't care about their old buildings and just constructed things on top of other and it wasn't until recently that they started kind of preserving and re construction some of it. For example, the found some ruins and still decided to build a metro station on it, or how a hotel found an old Roman Amphitheater and instead of stopping construction, now you can find a small piece of the amphitheater at the bottom of the hotel.

The new metro station is on the left!

Part of the Roman Amphitheater

The other thing that I remember, and my favorite part about Bulgaria, was that during WWII there were zero Jews killed! The government kind of didn't want to send people to the concentration camps and every time that Hitler called to see when the Jewish people were going to be sent the government made excuses to keep them such as they are working on the rail roads etc. At the end of the war no Jews from Bulgaria were killed, making them the only country that preserved their entire Jewish population!

The photo below is from the square of Tolerance; we did a 360 turn and we could see a mosque, a synagogue, and an orthodox church, meaning that all religions are accepted and tolerated.

Near the square of Tolerance there was a statue of Saint Sofia (no, that's not why Sofia is called Sofia, it has nothing to do with this lady!) but where she stands used to be a statue of Lenin, I guess there is no tolerance for him!

From there we kept walking and seeing the different sights that Sofia had to offer, we even drank some hot spring egg smelling water from where the baths used to be!

This used to be a Bath house!

And stopped at the St Rotunda Church, one of the oldest buildings in the world!

National Theater

We finished the tour at the Alexander Nevsky Cathedral, probably the most famous place in Sofia. On my first stop in Sofia I accidentally ended up in front of it and I had no idea it existed so I was just so impressed by the beauty of the building. I got to go inside and it was, as any other Orthodox church, full of beautiful frescos. It was late in the afternoon and they were almost closing but I sat inside there for about 20 minutes taking it all in when all of a sudden the choir started practicing! It was beautiful! I closed my eyes while I sat on the bench and listened to the choir's angelic voices, it was such a nice experience!

At the tour I met Nicole, my roommate at the hostel, and decided to go together to the local market and have some food. Of course I ended up buying almost a kilo and cherries and eating them all! The fresh produce is just so good!

As always, I just loved walking the streets with no set direction and open to being surprised.

I just loved the look of that building!

From my hostel I followed the tram tracks and ended up in an edgier neighborhood with a lot of street art and reminded me of San Francisco!

Apparently they love to paint the electricity boxes!

This is by far my favorite!

Many people said Sofia wasn't all that great but I thought it was a nice place to visit :)

After spending 5 days in Kosovo I headed back to Macedonia and visited lake Ohrid.

Apparently Ohrid is the most beautiful part of Macedonia and a local’s favorite since Macedonia is land locked and this lake is the only body of water around.

My first day I spent inside the hostel hoping for the rain to go away but had no luck; thankfully the rest of my time in Ohrid was rain free.

During my time in Prishtina I decided to do two day trips to Prizren and Peje, both of them around 2 hours away from Prishtina which made it a better option as a day trip than moving my backpack around and finding a place to stay.

My first outing was to the town of Prizren.

When I arrived I had no idea where the main part of town was so I decided to just walk along and figure it out as I went. Soon after I started I noticed some old boards with the city map and although they weren't in english I knew that if those board started showing up I was somewhat going the right way.

I got on an empty bus heading to Prishtina, Kosovo, and two guys (probably in their 30s) decided to sit next to me despite the whole bus being empty.

I put on my headphones and fell asleep. After 30 mins or so I had to write down my name and passport number in order to do the border crossing so it was the perfect time for them to break the ice.

One of them handed me the board and started a conversation by saying he was from Kosovo and said "I'm black" I looked at him with a puzzled face and I said "sorry? What did you say?" And he responded by touching his skin and saying "I'm black, and ugly", I didn't know where this conversation was going but I said "mmm... you are not black" he was barely any darker than me. Then he said "this is my cousin" and I responded "... and he is white?" And he said "yes, white and handsome" haha I really didn't even know where to begin! It really makes me angry when people base their opinion of others (or their self worth) based on their skin color or their physical features! When are we going to learn to go beyond what meets the eyes? The most striking thing is that he introduced himself by saying "I'm ugly" I would never ever do that! I think in general the most attractive part of a person is his confidence... zero points for this dude!

Oh wow!!!

Skopje is just so hard to describe! First of all it is ridiculous! I believe it’s the city with the most statues and monuments per square meter in the whole world!

The main stretch looks really funny with at least 100 bronze statues spread all throughout the streets; the city feels plastiki and fake but in a good way. I think the overwhelming amount of statues makes an impression that I probably will never forget.

Sofia

Scenic Lake Ohrid, Macedonia

Prizren and Peje

Welcome to Kosovo!

Crazy Skopje!

Subscribe

Instagram

About me

Blog Archive

Labels