Bulgaria Travel Forum

Hello,
I am poor Swiss volunteer in Kosovo who would like to go to Sofia for a week by train via Skopje, Macedonia and would be greatful for any tips on:
a) youth hostels
b) info on transportation within Sofia and how long and possibly how much it would be to take a train/bus from Sofia to Varna or any other coastal city/town that you may wish to recommend.
c) Sources for bus or train timetables to travel back to Skopje, Macedonia or Belgrade, Serbia.

Any response would be appreciated!

Many thanks,

S.

For coastal cities, definitely go to Nessabar (Несебър) and Sozopol (Созопол). Ancient towns, very beautiful and picturesque.
Though they're nor coastal, you might consider Plovdiv (Пловдив) and Veliko Tarnovo (Велико Търново), they are both very beautiful and artistic.

For trains timetable check here:

http://www.bdz.bg/

If you're going from Skopje to Sofia, it's much quicker to use bus than train. There are quite a few buses daily and they take around 5 hours - see www.sas.com.mk for timetables. There is no direct train route from Macedonia to Bulgaria so you would need to detour via Nis in Serbia, which takes a lot longer.

Stella,

The Dimitrovgrad(fr)-Nish part is a permanent Baustelle on the rails. It's pretty scenic (Nishava gorge) but now it's going to be electrified and all tunnels need work. Trains can be late several hours. If you want to see the scenery like you would see Rockies from California Zephyr, than go for the train (and save $1000 for a round-trip airplane ticket + $500 for a Denver-San Francisco trip by train). In many places Nishava Canyon is like Colorado River Canyon - but Nish-Sofia ticket is "a little bit" cheaper. Just don't expect the train to be on-time at all. Once it's OK for scenery, but otherwise try the direct Skopje-Sofia bus.

If you have time, visit Staro Nagorichane near Kumanovo which is not far from Skopje
http://www.culture.org.mk/eKUM2.HTM

and Bojana near Sofia.
http://www.pravoslavieto.com/hramove/sofia/boyana/index_en.htm

Plus Rila, of course.

I absolutely agree regarding Neseb'r.
http://www.pravoslavieto.com/hramove/nesebar/index.htm
http://www.pravoslavieto.com/hramove/nesebar/tsarkvi.htm

(Sorry, quick links with text rather for Inga and Keti - and myself; for us it's like Bavarian for Swiss or closer, but you can randomly click and won't be disappointed)

Also if you can, try to visit Veliko T'rnovo and the old city of Plovdiv.

OMG!
I've just noticed that my text in Cyrilic turned into a complete 'galimatiat'.
Sorry fir that. I just doubled the names of the destinations, how they're written in Bulgarian but helas,,, it doesn't work. So only English names remain
:(

btw if you stick to Plovdiv (which I highly recommend, you might also consider Bachkovski monastery. It's about 304- mins by bus from Plovdiv, bus station ('avtogara' in Bulgarian) 'Rodopy'. It's the 2nd monastery after Rila, founded by Georgian monk Grigory Bakurian. The scenery there is really breathtaking. Looks very similar to Caucasus (Armenia or Georgia) (I have some Caucasian ancestry, I know what i'm telling:))

Happy travels

bookmark

Plovdiv-Asenovgrad is a very easy connection by elektrichka. If you don't know what elektrichka is, there you will know. :-)

Actually, not the 100% cuz our slavic brothers in BG and YU got a "parrot" (=luxus-elektrichka) from us.
Balkans are literally overrun by them. Amazingly, they are still working.

Export-Parrots/1:

http://www.railfaneurope.net/pix/sp/electric/emu/blue-grey/412-014_Pinosava.jpg
http://www.railfaneurope.net/pix/sp/electric/emu/white-blue/JZ_414%2B414_Beovoz-Resnik-1.jpg

Export-Parrots/2:

http://www.railfaneurope.net/pix/bg/electric/emu/32/061-070/BDZZ_000000094.jpg
http://www.railfaneurope.net/pix/bg/electric/emu/32/061-070/BDZ_10125.jpg

The REAL THING (and not too bad!):

http://www.railfaneurope.net/pix/ru/electric/emu/ER2/blue-white/ER2-1116_20070509_124.jpg

While it is not a "tourist attraction", these EMU-s are so common, in Russia they became part of popular songs, folklore, etc. You can see many around Skopje, Beograd, Sofia, Plovdiv without Russian visa.... and visit Asenovgrad. Bachkovo is also very close to Asenovgrad.

Looks great Gyuri! Thanks.

Little video from an other place:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p9f8X3Fz_1w

I have no idea, how they are doing it, but that thing accelerates even in Balkan mountains like a mad @ss.
But the sound is a bit scary.

They made a 200 km/h version of it, too:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=THNWfwVwbWE

Sofia - Budapest (819 km) in 4 hours would be nice on that... but so far it's going 650 km distance between Moscow and SPB in somewhat more than 3 hours.

Used the hi-speed trains in Japan (Shinkansen) and from Brussels to Schipol. Not what I'm looking for now - I need to investigate domestic travel within Bulgaria (buses/trains) to plan my trip in the Spring.

Hi everyone,

Thanks so much for the tips and suggestions.
Really appreciate it and will begin planning asap!
Cant wait!
:)