Day 21 - We crossed the country today from the capital of Sofia and arrived at the sea, the Black Sea. We saw Bulgaria's variety of scenery from the mountain towns to vast expanses of grain fields.
Our 'direct' train left at 10:10 this morning. First, we had to change to the real train from Sophia Central. We had a five minute ride to a north station. Then we got on the wrong car as we had tickets for two seats in the first of only four cars. We got situated quickly during our short five minute stay.
The trip lasted seven and a half hours and covered a bit more than 500 kms. Jay likened the equipment as a bit less robust than Sri Lankan trains. However, we probably got up to speeds of around 80 mph on good sections of tracks.
We only had breadsticks, chips, and cookies for our lunch. The cabin was the side-type with room for eight. The ladies above caught a little sleep as we did. They didn't come all the way through to Varna as we had stops for passengers to disembark and embark in a half dozen stations along the way.
We came to the end of the line at around 5:48 pm. As we had not walked much during the day, we dragged out one carry on and carried our backpacks for about a kilometer to the mOdus hotel (the spelling is their idea of cool and modern) which is very nice and faces the famous Sea Garden park on the Black Sea.
The city itself is mostly designed for pedestrians. The whole middle area is bricks but cars can drive on streets right up to the edges. This is definitely known as a resort town as one of the oldest ports on the Black Sea. This has been a settlement for over 7000 years and follows the historical context of the area for the last few millennia.
First we touched the Black Sea and then walked into town in search of dinner. We were hungry because of our skimpy lunch on the train today. We found our place near the Varna Opera House. I had a a Grande Burger that was so large, I had to eat it with a knife and fork. My beer was from Belgium, not Bulgaria! Jay had chicken steak and potatoes. He had to request the carrots as on the menu. Apparently during the menu reprinting, the English wasn't modified to reflect the vegetable was dropped. They brought him a side of mini carrots.
Finally, we're in a 'cat' city. When travelling in areas in this part of the world, we usually find contented, overfed cats waiting in public places to get some extra attention and bonus petting. This really is the first place so far. I think they like the local restaurants because, of course, fish are on the menu in a coastal town. Being extra nice, means a house cat can get extra fish if one is polite and acts lovingly.
