Europe 2019 - Day 36

11 June 2019, Tuesday

Today is a travelling day.

First we had to take a train to Bucharest. This is almost a 10 hour ride. In Bucharest we need to go to the bus station to take the bus to Sofia. Another 7-8 hours and we arrive in Sofia early morning 6.30 a.m. Dear God. 

On the way to Bucharest, I saw what the locals call the Caraiman Cross, sitting high up on a hill. It’s real name is the Heroes’ Cross. It is a monument built between 1926 and 1928 in the memory of the railway heroes who died on duty in WW I fighting against the armies of the Central Powers. It is situated on the Caraiman Peak at an altitude of 2,291 metres in the Bucegi Mountains. It has a height of 36 metres and the nearest town is Busteni. According to an old uncle who was happily chatting with me on the train, there is also a rock formation there on the hill which from sideways looks like the Sphinx. Unfortunately I couldn’t see it from the train.

We also saw 2 castles out of the window on the way to Bucharest; the first was the Cantacuzino Castle, a huge building built in Neo-Romanian style in 1911; and the second was Peleș Castle, a Neo-Renaissance castle in the Carpathian Mountains, on an existing medieval route linking Transylvania and Wallachia, built between 1873 and 1914. It was constructed for King Carol I. This is Romania for you. Full of castles and all things medieval. The people are nice, too. It is really a beautiful country. If ever I finish seeing the world and still have time to do it again, I would come back to Romania for sure to see all my castles to my heart’s content. 

We arrived in Bucharest at about 7.30 p.m., went to the toilet and then we had problems finding a bus ticket to get to the bus terminal for our next bus to Sofia. Reading some material on the public transportation system in Bucharest, I found that the system is quite unreliable. We had time but the problem was that the only available ticket machine nearby did not have the tickets we wanted. And this is the capital of Romania! 

The problem is compounded by the taxi drivers who are just like our taxi drivers in Malaysia, they tend to demand a flat rate rather than use the metre. So we had no choice but to take an Uber to the bus stop. We arrived early and had to hang around there until 11.30 p.m. for our next bus. Tonight my bed is a bus seat. Great.

So while I’m waiting for the bus in the middle of the night let me talk about the history of Bulgaria. Bulgaria was initially inhabited by the Thracians, famed for their gold-making, fierce warriors and the gladiator Spartacus, for thousands of years. Then they were conquered by the Romans, and later the Byzantine Empire. In the 7th century, Slavic and Bulgar tribes entered the Byzantine provinces of Thrace, Miesian and Macedonia, and together formed the Bulgarian Empire. By the end of the 14th century, the region was taken over by the Ottoman Turks, who continued to conquer the region for 5 centuries. Hence, there is a lot of Turkish influence and descendants in Bulgaria, for example baklava is a famous dessert here. 

Bulgaria regained its independence from the Ottoman Empire in 1878 with the help of the Russian Empire. Bulgaria had the misfortune to be on the losing side in both World Wars, and after WW II it was occupied by the Soviet Union. The fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 also saw the end of communism in Bulgaria, but only really shed its communist / socialist leanings in 1997. The Bulgarian currency is called leva(Euro is about twice as much as the leva) which means... of course! Lion. Lions in Romania, lions in Bulgaria. These Eastern Europeans must be really fascinated with lions. The Bulgarian language is related to the Serbian, Russian and other Slavic languages and thus uses Cyrillic alphabets. 

Good luck to us!