A Side Trip to Bulgaria

One of the things that we talked about doing while in Israel was to travel outside of Israel.  While there's plenty to see here -- and we'll be doing more of that right before we leave -- there's also a big world to explore.  Thanksgiving seemed to be the right time to go -- Helen was out of school for the holiday -- so we pulled Alice and Gabi for several days and jetted off to Bulgaria to see Jan's cousins, Jonathan and Carrie, who are there for work for a couple of months.

I've never been to Bulgaria but for most of my admissions life, I've read applications from Bulgaria.  So I sort of felt a pull to the country.  I knew the capital is Sofia and that the next largest city is Plovdiv.  But my knowledge ends there.  Currency?  Didn't know that it's the lev.  National drink?  Rakia, as I learned later (it's made from fermented grapes or plums).

Jonathan and Carrie met us at the Sofia Airport and promptly got us onto the metro, which took us to the train station for a 2.5 hour train ride to Plovdiv.  The biggest shock of our first few hours in Bulgaria?  The weather.  We deplaned (via the back staircase, mind you) and promptly saw our breath.  It was quite the change from Israel.  Fortunately, we borrowed winter clothes from a friend and were prepared.

Plovdiv is a fascinating city of just under 700,000 people.  It's actually one of the oldest cities in the world, with evidence of habitation back 8000 years.  It was inhabited by the Thracians, the Persians, the Greeks, the Romans, the Goths, the Turks, and eventually plain old Bulgarians.  What's more fascinating about the city is that as they dig and built, they keep finding ancient buildings and have to stop their projects.

We walked everywhere.  We traipsed over an ancient Roman road.  We strolled up Bunardzhik Hill and saw the Aloysha Monument.  We saw the ancient stadium of Philippopolis (right in downtown Poovdiv) and the amazingly well preserved ancient theater of Philippopolis.  We did a little rock climbing on Nebet Tepe (one of the original 7 hills of Plovdiv).  And several times, we walked by Dzhumaya Mosque.

(the ancient theater of Philippopolis; and yes, you can walk all over everything in it)

Most interesting to find in Plovdiv was a memorial to those Bulgarians who saved the Jewish community from the Nazi annihilation.  In fact, Bulgaria was the only Axis nation that did not send its Jews to their deaths.

After Plovdiv, we drove to Sofia (about 90 minutes) for a day of sight-seeing.  Bulgaria's capital city, it's home to around 1,250,000 residents.  There's lots to see in a small area but there are two highlights.  First is the Square of Tolerance.  Within an area of maybe 200 square meters, you have the Sofia Synagogue (one of the largest
Sephardic Synagogues in the world), Banya Bashi (the last mosque in Sofia), St. Joseph Catholic Cathedral, and Sveta Petka Orthodox Church.

The second impressive sight was the Cathedral of Saint Aleksandar Nevski.  It's huge.

And then, just as quickly as we went to Bulgaria, it was time to go home again.  We'd recommend a visit -- things are so incredibly cheap (the Bulgarian sufganiyah was the equivalent of 30 cents) but Bulgaria is joining the European Union and once they adopt the euro, prices are going to skyrocket.