We left the rafting center around 8:30 am and headed for Sofia. The GPS said it would be about a 9 hour drive, with two border crossings and a time change (losing an hour). So we had made the decision to stay about halfway in a hotel and break it up into two days. Because 9 hours over here means about double that!! This is due mostly to the fact that the major roads go right through the heart of the small towns and it's just one after another. With the speed limi...

Since it's our last day to do something in Sofia, we decided to join the Cultural Tour we'd heard about the other day during the Free Sofia Tour. We walked over to Vitosha pedestrian area and shopped a bit until time to meet up with the guide. Her name was Elisa, and she was from Sofia. Very cute and a great speaker. We had a group of about 12, and to our surprise there were 2 Americans with us! They were from Ohio and the woman's name was also Beth! We were...

Plovdiv is the second largest city in Bulgaria, and we decided to take a day and go visit it. Our tour guide from the Free Sofia Tour had mentioned it as something worth seeing. We caught a bus to take us to the main bus station, where we bought tickets. Not as easy as it sounds when all the signs are in letters that make no sense to us. The ride took 2.5 hours, but the bus was really nice and comfy. The only downside was the driver was smoking and playing the...

A trip to the mall was the highlight of today. Apparently, Bulgarians are mad about malls, and there are a lot of them in Sofia! This was another big one called Paradise--lots of typical stores and it was pretty busy for a weekday. We wandered around for a couple hours, then caught the local tram and headed home. Dinner was at a restaurant that we visited yesterday on the free food tour--way more food than we could eat, and all for $25, including drinks. Lovi...

A trip to the mall was the highlight of today. Apparently, Bulgarians are mad about malls, and there are a lot of them in Sofia! We visited another big one called Paradise--lots of typical stores and it was pretty busy for a weekday. We wandered around for a couple hours, then caught the local tram and headed home. Dinner was at a restaurant that we visited yesterday on the free food tour--way more food than we could eat, and all for $25, including drinks. ...