TRAVEL | EUROPE | BULGARIA

Moving From a Modern City To Ancient History

My weeks in photos — Week 24 & 25 — August 25–September 7, 2022

We are happy to say that we finally reached Bulgaria!

We were last here in 2015 and to say that we are happy to be back would be an understatement. We forgot how much we feel at home in this country and really look forward to a couple of months of exploration around here.

But before that, let’s recap the past few days in Istanbul.

After writing my last post, Biding Our Time In Istanbul, I was starting to feel impatient and restless. Chris claimed that he was fine with staying there for longer, but the call for something new was strong for me. The owner claimed that she was going to get paint so we could paint artwork, but day by day would go by and there was never any paint. I was losing faith that this was going to happen at all.

We managed to fill our days with more exploration, though and explored new areas of the city we hadn’t seen before.

One day we found ourselves walking up a hill that we hadn’t been up to before to check out a mosque that we could see from below. We were thrilled when we came across this restaurant with a stunning view and stopped to have a bowl of ice cream while taking in the sights.

We then continued on to the mosque which was stunning. Unfortunately, I wasn’t dressed appropriately to go inside, so we decided that we would do that another time.

On the grounds of the mosque, they had these super cool trees that had the stems overlapped and twisted to look like a vase at the bottom. We could see where the branches had been tied together, but over time the joins are fusing and growing into each other.

Last week we discovered that there were a brand new bunch of kittens in our neighborhood cat area. We have been visiting this spot almost daily for the 2 plus weeks that we were staying there. But only on this day did we discover these cuties. They must have just gotten strong enough to make it out of the house, as they were still wobbly on their legs, and we had great fun watching their antics for our remaining days in Istanbul.

For more on the kittens see linked post below.

One evening we were showing our Mexican friend around Istanbul a bit and we came across a beautiful sight. The moon was making a mosque look lovely with the way it was nestling into it. I only take photos with my iPhone, so unfortunately these pictures aren’t the greatest, but they aren’t too bad either, considering. As we moved through the city, so did the moon, and at the end of our walk, it was nestled in between the minarets and looked like a magical fairyland.

On Friday, after continuing to wait for our host to get paint, we finally decided that it might never happen and that it was time to make a move and leave. Knowing that there were night buses to Bulgaria every day, we made a plan to just head to the bus station at around noon the following day, and figure out the schedule once we got there.

We had some mishaps with our transportation along the way, and what should have taken us 35 minutes took us close to 2 hours.

We were amazed when we saw an IKEA out the window of our transit train on the way to the station and were even more excited when we could see it from the bus parking lot. With 8 hours to kill before our bus, we knew right where we were headed to do so.

It was surreal to wander around inside and know that we were in Istanbul, but it felt like we could be back in the Vancouver IKEA. The stores are almost annoyingly exactly the same except for the price tags that are displayed in Turkish Lira.

I have to say that it felt strange going to IKEA and not buying one thing. I’m pretty sure that is a first for me!

The mall also had Legoland, some sort of marine world, plus hundreds of stores. We killed a couple of hours just wandering around aimlessly then went and sat in a park until it got dark.

Our bus left at 11:00 pm.

We were really excited about the state of the bus station and the bus itself. It was all so impressive compared to what we have been experiencing the past couple of years in Africa. Plush and comfortable seats greeted us and the bus even had carpet on the floor! We were amazed.

The journey cost us just $20 each and took about 7.5 hours which included 2 hours at the border at about 3:00 am.

We arrived in Plovdiv, the second largest city in Bulgaria, at about 6:30 am. We were weary with exhaustion and set out to find accommodation. It was a bit of a nightmare as the older generation here does not speak English which includes taxi drivers and people who work at the bus and train stations.

Our taxi driver didn’t seem to know where any hostels were, and we drove around the city aimlessly for quite a while before we saw the word hostel flash past our taxi window.

“Stop!” We both yelled in unison. Chris went to check it out and reported back that it was cheap and full of hippies.

Perfect!

When it was all said and done the price of the taxi was more than the price of our stay for the first night.

So much for saving money by going to a hostel!

Anyways, we were happy to arrive and collapsed into our bed and slept hard until about 1:00 pm.

We then decided to head out for a walk and immediately fell in love with the old part of Plovdiv that we are staying in.

We weren’t aware of the history of Plovdiv and have been amazed at the remnants of Roman ruins that are scattered throughout the city.

We have also fallen in love with the art that covers many buildings.

We spent the last three days wandering aimlessly through the adorable streets and looking at the ruins that have been preserved in the heart of the city.

I will be writing a separate post about Plovdiv that will include some historical information. (Update: Here it is!) This is one of the oldest cities in Europe! We had no idea.

It’s festival season here still and there have been celebrations going on around every corner. Plus yesterday marked Bulgaria's Unification Day, so there were parades and fireworks, both of which we missed.

We did, however, go to the old Roman Amphitheatre this morning to look around and we were told that the President of Bulgaria was there last night as part of the celebrations. We missed all the action, as usual.

We think it is so cool that they still use this ancient structure that houses so much incredible history.

Today we are packed up and are heading off to the center of the country to a town called Gabrovo. A friend that we met the last time we were here lives there and he has set us up with a host so we can relax and enjoy the area for a few days.

Our only solid plan in Bulgaria is a volunteer gig starting on September 25th where we will be helping with a fig harvest and working in the garden getting a small farm ready for winter. It’s located near the seaside city of Varna, which is a place we truly fell in love with the last time.

It’s quite interesting actually as when we visited Varna the last time on just a holiday, it was the first place where we considered the possibility that maybe we could live there. We hadn’t even thought of living overseas as a possibility until then, and just one year after that trip we made the decision to sell everything to travel full time.

So we like to think that Varna was where the seed was planted, and it seems incredibly synchronistic that we find ourselves heading back there now.

Thanks so much for joining us on our past couple of weeks. We are truly in love with Bulgaria and can’t wait to see more of the country as we move around.

Hope everyone has a great week!

xo Jill

Thanks so much for joining me in my week in photos. Dennett started this challenge in her publication Weeds & Wildflowers during the beginnings of the pandemic, and it has since grown to include many authors. Check out the amazing writing and photography of Anne | Erika | Jane | Eileen | Juan | David | Mia | Susan | LensAfield | Kim | Barbara | Diana | Barb | Sandra | Shruthi | Ellie | Pene | Olive | Gustavo | Penny | Scott | Sasha | Tracy | Lisa | June | K. Barrett | Ivy | Shell and of course our host Dennett.

If you want to read about my past weeks, I have put all of my weeks in photos into their own list:

Hi there, we are 2 Canadians, Jill and Chris from Artistic Voyages. We have been nomadic since 2017 living in numerous different countries, and experiencing the life and diversity of our planet on the ground and firsthand. We paint FREE murals in exchange for accommodation. Consider tipping us on Ko-fi!

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