Beautiful Bulgaria!

Howdy all!
We're calling on you from Veliko Tarnovo in Bulgaria at the moment. As a country it is seriously under-rated and we recommend it to anyone whose up for beautiful views and extremely good value for your cash. Not only that but the people we have met here are incredibley friendly, more so than some of the countries we've been to so far (cough french!)...

We spend a couple of days in Thessaloniki where our friendly receptionist Dimitris was very kind and showed us around the town abit. He was an excellent friend & MASSIVE fan of Samantha Fox! He even knew her personally and showed us pictures of them together, as well as emails they'd been sending each other...was fantastic entertainment. The last day we spent there though was incredibley hot and we had to wait for our night train to Sofia in a pool of sweat. When the time came to get our train though we were not guranteed a seat, so we bribed the station master for a first class cabin with beds, for not too bad a deal either. After much commotion in the middle of the night with border officials - while Sam was in a sleep-induced coma - we arrived in Bulgaria...slightly nervous because alot of Greeks had told us to be extra careful in the foreign land...

As a capital city, Sofia lacks the nomenclature. Instead of a central area which progresses outwards into a more suburbian style, it has everything lumped in like a melting pot. You can see and feel the hum of a communistic history. After a day or so of walking round the parks & free art/photo exhibitions we started to warm up to the place and in the end didn't feel nervous anymore. We met some excellent people, especially our receptionist Todd who was such a brilliant guy. We realised that the place we stayed at had a sister hostel in Veliko Tarnovo and everyone who'd been there was raving about it. So we booked a few nights and caught a three hour bus trip there...

This town has got amazing views of fortesses, gorges and waterfalls which has really surprised us, and also the mountains of bulgaria are very picturesque so we promise to get you some photos up as soon as possible. We got invited out to a bar at the weekend and cause the drinks were dirt cheap (3euros a round) we got abit more than merry. The following day was spent doing nothing except swinging on the hammock and talking gibberish...

We've had an excellent time here but a 6hr train journey to Romania starts tommorrow. We're heading to Bucharest first and then Brashov for some serious vampire hunting/hiking. Will keep you all posted when we have more stories to tell...

Love to all of you xx