Bulgaria

What do you do if you have a week of holidays but not booked any trip and you really feel like doing something? Thanks to low-cost airlines, the answer is easy nowadays: check to where they have the cheapest flights and book! This is kind of what we did for the autumn holidays, except that we chose Bulgaria for one more reason, which is that neither us had been there before.

Originally, we wanted to go somewhere warm and sunny because the weather in Belgium had be so awful during the summer. But then we got a really nice September and October so we could be more flexible. I'm so happy we made it to Bulgaria, one more EU Member State to cross of my list - now only Portugal, Cyprus, and Slovenia are unvisited!

Since we booked quite late we didn't work out much of an itinerary but rather decided "on the go". We also got some great advice from some Bulgarian friends so we ended up a small road trip from Sofia, to Plovdiv, Veliko Târnovo, and back to Sofia. Our priorities were mainly: good food, relaxation, some nature, some culture. I think we got pretty much all of this and especially the food was no disappointment!

One thing I enjoyed especially and that I was quite surprised about were the amazing independent coffee shops that we found and where we spent quite some time. Some examples are Fabrika  Daga ("Rainbow Factory") and Barista Coffee and More in Sofia, and places like Monkey Bar in the the Kapana district in Plovdiv. Once we went to get coffee at Costa's and it was a huge disappointment - luke warm coffee, smelly seating area, dirty toilets. And it was about twice the price of a cup of coffee in the other, much nicer places! So if you are a coffee lover I definitely recommend going to Bulgaria.

We didn't even make it as far as the Black Sea coast but I spent a couple of days on the Romanian side of the border a few years ago and remember it was quite pleasant (except the Soviet era style resorts that were extremely crowded and didn't have any "natural" beaches). Maybe if we go back in the summer this will be an option, too.

And one quick knitting update: I made quite a bit of progress on my Palmetto cardigan and I'm enjoying it a lot. Hopefully I'll be able to post the finished project soon.