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Balchik Summer Palace

mcdog — Mon, 03 Sep 2007 13:10:43 +0000

Early mornings are not really a speciality of Team Dogrose but when necessary we can do daybreaks with the best. This was one of those days. We planned to visit the botanical gardens in Balchik and we wanted to be there before it got too hot and also before the crowds arrived on tour buses. So we parked the car and grabbed an espresso from a machine in the corner of the car park. The coffee was good.

Then we walked down the steep hill to the palace gardens, past restaurants and stalls that were just opening for the day. It was very pleasant and still quite cool and we were so early that the gardens were not yet open, so we sat in the shade and waited. At 0815 the second of the ‘gate girls’ arrived and one sold us a ticket and the other tore a section from the ticket and we were through the gates and into the gardens.

We had bought a guide of the gardens which gave a recommended route for visitors so we followed that as well as we could. First on the route was ‘Allah’s Garden’, a mixture of cactus, fir trees and border plants, with a small stream running through the middle. This was a theme for the gardens, lots of running water, quirky buildings, bridges, stone walls, very large pots, and plants and trees gathered from around the world.

The palace was built by King Ferdinand of Romania in the 1920s for his wife as a place of solitude and it was still a tranquil place as we wandered about in the pleasant mixture of sunlight and shade. We even found a copy of the script from the ‘wedding’ we had seen the previous evening, the staff were still in the process of clearing up.

We never found the Tropical House, with it’s reptile display, but we did find a small garden just outside the entrance to the Palace that had a nice display of plants.

We then got breakfast at one of the restaurants on the lane leading to the car park and watched the first coach tours of the day streaming down the hill, happy to have missed the crowds.

North Coast

mcdog — Thu, 02 Aug 2007 15:08:37 +0000

The guy brought the car round to our hotel at 0930hrs, ran me through the procedure in case of an accident, gave me a small wallet of papers to carry at all times and then he left. A few seconds later I remembered that he’d said he’d tell me the route to take to get out of town but he’d vanished. We grabbed our bags from the room, loaded the car and went for breakfast at a cafe across the road. We even got the ‘full English’. Then it was into the car, pay the parking fee and with a little guesswork at junctions we were on the ‘main drag’ leading out of town and off to the wide blue yonder. We turned right at the roundabout and started to worry about finding a filling station, there was not much fuel in the Fiesta. There was no need to worry, we found a garage after about three miles and filled the tank, 75 leva or about twenty five quid.
Then we exercised the lower gears by following a bus up the long winding hill through deeply wooded countryside on the road to Varna. We saw very few houses on the hill but passed through a few villages before crossing the huge bridge at the city of Varna. We saw a few ships entering and leaving the port but I was concentrating mainly on traffic, road signs and remembering that the gear lever was on ‘the other side’.
We didn’t stop in Varna and took the road out of town to Balchik. We saw road signs for Albena and, as a friend had recently bought an apartment there, we decided to make a quick visit to the resort. At a toll booth we collected tickets and drove into the town. The street was very crowded with pedestrians and with cars parked on the pavements. So we found a patch of pavement to park on and walked the few feet to the beach. We had a drink of aryan at a nearby cafe. Aryan is a handy drink when driving in this country, it’s a mixture of yogurt and water and, if ordered with ice, can be very cool and refreshing. The beach was not as crowded as Sunny Beach and there was a game of volleyball nearby watched over by a very serious umpire ( or is it referee?). After the drink we joined the long queue to pay our toll for entering, or leaving, the town, 4 leva, and then turned north onto the coast road for Balchik, just a few miles further.
Balchik was a charming place and we went to look for a hotel for the night. We had read about the Balchik Hotel in the Lonely Planet guide and eventually took a room there though there was no fan. Why did we take the room? I’m not too sure but I was intrigued by the L.P.’s description of the Soviet-era style hotel.
We took a stroll along the front in Balchik, past people swimming in the sea. On our other side was a terraced garden with what appeared to be a wedding conducted in English, presumably a phoney wedding run as some kind of tourist entertainment. Ahh well, to each their own. On the walk back we were dragged into a restaurant where the chef told us that he bought his fish early in the morning from the local boats. So we had fish. A couple of beers later and we were back in the hotel, hoping for a stronger breeze and dodging mosquitoes. We saw an incredibly fast centipede run up the wall of our room and in total disregard for the diversity of species killed it with a sharp blow to the head with a sandal. In spite of the heat, I slept very well, Herself did not. So it goes.

Burgas

mcdog — Fri, 27 Jul 2007 16:22:03 +0000

Walking to the bus station was very pleasant in the cool of the morning. There was a bus at the stop, and it was the bus to Burgas; or is it Bourgas? Nobody seems to know, both spellings are widely used, sometimes on the same document. The bus had air-con but I was surprised that it did not have blinds to block the sun from the passengers, though the journey was comfortable and blinds weren’t needed. The conductor didn’t look as though she was on her way to a day on the beach, unlike the conductor on the bus we had got to Nesebar.
We travelled through a few villages separated by fields of wilting sunflowers and acres of dark green vines. In places there were many trees, obviously a few years old, growing amongst the vines, so some of the fields may be neglected.
The bus route terminated right in front of the entrance to the port so looked easy to find for the return journey. We turned uphill and changed some money at a convenient bank where the teller was dressed as if for a night on the town. Bulgaria must have a different dress code from the UK, though if conductors in the UK dressed the same as on the Nesebar bus then the hospitals would be overflowing with exposure patients.
We had a leisurely breakfast in a quiet, tree-shaded square and indulged in a little people-watching. Nobody seemed to be in a hurry and almost everybody that we saw was well-dressed. A well-endowed lady passed, closely followed by a smiling man with a large tripod and a very large bag; presumably a photographer and model on their way to a shoot. At the next table eight people were combining a business meeting and breakfast. We eventually tore ourselves away from the cafe and wandered out from the shade into the sunlight.
The plot was to visit a few estate agents, to find some decent-sized mugs for tea and to find the beach. Despite walking around several streets in what we took to be the right part of town, we never saw a single estate agent and abandoned that search. By this time it was very hot and we went to look for the beach. Heading downhill again we found some mugs in a 1 lev shop, the local equivalent of the pound shop, though not everything in the shop cost a lev.
Reaching the port entrance again we turned to our left and walked along a wide dual-carriageway shaded by large trees. We may have been in the shade but we certainly didn’t feel any cooler and when we reached what looked to be a large carpark and a deadend we decided to retreat to the bus. Arriving once again at the port entrance we found a street map of Burgas on display. If we had walked a little further we would have found the beach and the popular park just behind it, the deadend was all in my imagination. Too late, a bus was at the stop and we took it to Sunny Beach, the conductor was male and looked a little like Danny De Vito. Shame.

Vodka

mcdog — Wed, 25 Jul 2007 17:02:00 +0000

I looked at the shelves in the corner of the shop. There were a lot of brands of vodka. Which to choose. Lots of them were cheap, or at least a lot cheaper than the imports, and if it’s to be mixed with orange juice does the quality really matter? So I chose the one with the dope leaf logo. It wasn’t the cheapest, it wasn’t the dearest, I didn’t really look at the prices and I didn’t really look at the full display. I saw the one with the leaf and the choice was made. Slightly over 3 quid. Sold.
Back at the hotel I noticed that the name of the brand was The Spirit of Mary Jane Vodka. Ahh, that explains the leaf then.

Nesebar

mcdog — Tue, 24 Jul 2007 17:53:50 +0000

We slept in. Seriously slept in. I blame it on not setting my watch to local time. Fool. So we felt it was too late to go to Burgas but thought that we would go to the bus station anyway to check the bus times for the journey the next day and to catch a bus to Nesebar. The staff in a ticket office told us to pay on the bus but didn’t say where to find the bus stop. A nearby taxi driver offered to take us for 20 leva. We declined and he produced a very unofficial-looking printed price sheet from the boot of his cab. We also declined his reduced offer of 15 leva. After wandering around what turned out to be the back of the station and then joining possibly the slowest information queue in Bulgaria, some kind soul told us that the stop was on the main drag by the traffic lights.
It was about a 100 metres back to the lights and sure enough there was the bus stop, the queue and the bus. Nice timing for a change. The fare was a half lev each and we sweated the 5 kilometres to Nesebar, where we were dropped at the end of the causeway to the old town.
Nesebar is a rocky outcrop about 850 metres by 300 metres. It’s steep and cobbled lanes are packed with restaurants and shops and the ruins of old churches. We stumbled upon a former church, still in good condition but now an art gallery, built in the characteristic Nesebar style of horizontal strips of white stone and red brick but were unable to see inside as it was closed by a chain across the door.
After a breakfast of fruit and herring salad, an unusual breakfast but then it was also an unusual time for breakfast, we wandered to the top of the outcrop where we saw restaurants with fine views over the sea. However the strong smell of sewage here made us glad we had eaten further down the rock. It was very hot and we retreated back to the causeway where a man with a megaphone kept insisting that a boat was leaving for Sunny Beach. So we jumped on board and took our seats for the trip back ‘home’. The man with the hailer metamorphosed into the skipper and the voyage began. The woman sitting next to Herself sounded as though she was facing Arctic gales but the waves were only a few inches high and we survived the journey. It occurred to us that we didn’t know where in Sunny Beach the boat was headed but fortunately the jetty was only a couple of hundred metres from our hotel. Arriving by boat gave us another view of the beach and an overall view of the town.

Bathroom Service

mcdog — Sun, 22 Jul 2007 11:30:19 +0000

Call me an old fuddy-duddy stick-in-the-mud, but what’s a telephone doing in the bathroom? A hotline to reception? Help, I need more toilet paper, can you send someone to scrub my back?
We should be told.

Hot Coffee

mcdog — Sun, 22 Jul 2007 11:28:39 +0000

We manage to fall out of bed at a reasonable time, it’s still morning, and get down for breakfast in the hotel. Then it’s back up to the room for a cuppa.We head down to the beach to marvel at the acres of browning and burning flesh and drink an espresso. One of our first impressions of Bulgaria is that a decent espresso is easy to find, and we are confirmed espresso addicts. A cup of hot espresso, try finding that in the UK.

High in Sunny Beach

mcdog — Sun, 22 Jul 2007 11:26:40 +0000

What a sleep. It’s early afternoon by the time we get out of the room. We’re hungry, so we walk, looking for somewhere to eat. There’s plenty of choice and plenty of places offering five or six hours of Happy Hour.
We get ‘breakfast’ in a place called The Corner. It looks more of a nighttime place than a place to get breakfast. The girls wear outfits that look like costumes from a Flintstones movie and the roof in part of the cafe is held up by statues of topless ladies. What the hell, they serve food. Herself orders a salad and I make the mistake of ordering a toasted sandwich of cheese and salami. A couple of beers and a small confusion over the bill later and we’re back on the street looking for a supermarket. There’s no shortage of estate agents and we glance through the photos in the window but most of the adverts are for apartments in the town. We find a shop and buy water and something to add to the remaining vodka.
Even though there’s plenty of people on the beach, the streets are not crowded and there’s a very relaxed feel to the town. We wander for a while but it’s very warm and I should have worn my hat to protect my baldie head, so we retreat back to the hotel for an exiting night in front of the tv.

Low in Manchester

mcdog — Sun, 22 Jul 2007 11:25:03 +0000

It was raining in Manchester. It was raining everywhere in the UK according to the radio. It had been raining for almost the whole six weeks we had been back in the UK. Did we care? Not then we didn’t, we were sitting in the airport, watching planes take-off in clouds of spray. Waiting to catch a flight to Bulgaria, where it was rumoured that people were dying of heatstroke. People were drowning in the UK, swept away by floods. We decided to accept the risk of heat-stroke.
The plane was full, full of farting holiday-makers and screaming kids, but a bottle of Boris Jelzin vodka helped us get to Burgas airport. The same bottle helped us onto a green bus that took us through the dark to the Globus Hotel at Sunny Beach.The Globus overlooks the beach, if you get a room on the right side. Our room faces the car park and a pleasant little square lined with restaurants, a hair salon and a travel agents.
We eventually suss that the air-con won’t work while the balcony door is open and the room starts to cool. This is the first time for weeks that we’ve been too warm. Nice.

Mexico City Too

mcdog — Wed, 30 May 2007 21:34:46 +0000

We were out of bed early, this was our final day in Mexico City, and we needed to be out of our room by 1400hrs. Not a problem, we were assured that we would be back from our tour of the city long before that time. So the bags were packed and left inside the room and we went down to the lobby to meet our guide/driver. We had booked the tour of the city but somehow we were on a trip to the Frida Kahlo house and then the Floating Gardens, it was too late to change tours. Other people were collected from their hotels, a Mexican couple living in the States, a doctor and his wife from San Diego and an American couple who seemed to know a great deal about Trotsky and the Socialist Party of America.
When we arrived at the Blue House those of us who had visited previously waited outside with the guide. He had a theory that Trotsky may have been killed because of his supposed affair with Frida rather than by Joe Stalin’s hit squad, a little extreme especially considering the husband had been caught in flagrente delicto with her sister.
The Floating Gardens were all that a crap tourist trap should be, garish and designed purely to remove money from your wallet and provide nothing of any value in return. We had managed to avoid this kind of non-experience for weeks and to be caught out our last day in Mexico was galling.
Back at the hotel, an hour after we should have checked-out, we had to wait till they let us into the room to collect our bags. Then it was straight into a taxi and back into the traffic for the drive to the airport. It was four hours before our flight and the time passed slowly in that airless place. I had removed the knife from my hand luggage but missed the screwdrivers, as this was a flight to the States the security pantomime was more rigorous than usual and my screwdrivers were found and thrown into a bin.
A few hours later we arrived at Los Angeles World Airport (for inter-planetary arrivals perhaps) and after a drive to Santa Clarita went gratefully to bed. It was 1am, to our body-clocks it was 6am.