Tag Archives: Culture

Indulging in Brasov, Romania

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View from Tampa

Our train arrived in Bucharest after a five hour mid-day train from Veliko Tărnovo. We walked to our hotel, Villa Romana, and were surprised to find a locked door with only a phone number. Because we don’t have working phones (which is becoming very annoying) we had to find one to borrow. A salon next door was closing but luckily we were able to catch one of the employees. When I called, the receptionist asked why we didn’t coordinate a check-in time as requested on the booking confirmation. We were then instructed on how to enter with a hidden key and told which room to occupy. While waiting for the receptionist to arrive and collect our payment, I re-reviewed the email and saw the unusual request hidden amongst the regular jargon that booking.com sends. They obviously don’t make it easy to find because another couple had the same issue a few hours later (and we were able to help them by using google hangouts since we were then on wifi).

Also while waiting for the check-in process to complete, Sara looked at a lonely planet guidebook that was available in the room. We planned one night in Bucharest but otherwise had no idea what we wanted to do in Romania. The guide confirmed Continue reading →

Speed Walking through Sofia, Bulgaria

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Sofia’s public mineral bath house (now a museum)

We arrived to the city of Sofia after an exhausting night of traveling through Greece. We excitedly exited the train station feeling the cooler air and walked several blocks to our hostel for the night. Will actually found Hostel Mostel had single rooms in our price range. We checked-in to a bustling lobby filled with the typical backpackers. The receptionist was extra inviting and took about fifteen minutes to get us acquainted and excited for the city. We were only planning on using Sofia as a stopover point, but the welcome made us happy we had arrived.

As we walked to the single rooms which were located a short walk away in an apartment block, we learned that our room not only included breakfast, but dinner as well! Excited to save some money, we joined the other backpackers at 7:00pm back in the Hostel’s main common area. The hostel employees were serving out three meal options: spaghetti, lentils with rice, and fried egg with and Asian style salad. As an added bonus, we could wash down our choice with a glass of beer. Is this what we’ve been missing by not staying at Continue reading →

Migrating through Thessaloniki, Greece

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Before starting our last day of exploring Athens, we stopped by the train station to secure a sleeper cabin on a night train to Sofia, Bulgaria. The train station seemed to be extremely busy but we actually found the international travel desk to be wide open. We were disappointed to learn that the train was completely booked (and yes, we should have learned our lesson from the other two times night travel has been completely sold out on us). Without many options, we bought seats on an earlier train to Thessaloniki, Greece where we’d have a seven hour layover before continuing on to Sofia.

Athens Craft Beer Pale Ale and Dark PremiumSeveral hours later, we returned to the busy station for our evening train. We again noted how every inch of the small station was filled with people but didn’t think too much of it as we boarded and took our seats. We found the train to also be quite full as we settled in our assigned seats in a cabin with four others. Because of our interesting travel night, we planned on drinking a beer then trying to sleep most of the ride north. Unfortunately, the group seated in our cabin seemed to be having a family reunion which prevented any hope of catching zzz’s. Continue reading →