Bulgaria Travel Guide
12/04/2007 at 9:30 AM
Tags: Ski Travel, Bulgaria, Weird, Tourists (all tags)
We're getting the message from all directions this week: Bulgaria is the new place to ski. Whether it's an EasyJet flight tip or a recommendation for the ski resort at Bansko, we're not surprised that an Irish tourist named David Gibbons decided to take a holiday to ski in the Pirin Mountains.
But we are surprised about where he chose to sleep. After drinking too much to find his own hotel, Gibbons decided to force open the door of a furniture shop and take a nap on one of the showroom beds. Staff arriving for work the next day found him snoring away and called the police.
This would make a great holiday tale to tell his pals back home--except for the $4,000 fine he's now facing. That makes it quite the alternative to a night in his cheap Bulgarian hotel.
Related Stories:
· Tourist Slept in Shop Window Bed [Ananova]
· EasyJet Reckons It's Easy to Ski [Jaunted]
· Ski Bulgaria: At Least It's Cheap At Villa Roka [HotelChatter]
· Spooks on a Train [Jaunted]
[Photo: stevec77]
by amandak
5/09/2007 at 9:20 AM
Tags: Public Transportation, Trains, Toilets (all tags)
We had thought that the bare-chested drivers of trams and buses in Bratislava might have been an all-time public transportation low, but that was until we heard about the latest "innovation" in the Bulgarian train system.
The Bulgarian train drivers' union made a complaint that older trains had no toilets on board and drivers who felt the call of nature had to open the window and, well, go. Management's response?
Bulgarian train drivers have been issued with rotating chairs so they can pee out of the window without having to stop.
Now there's a collection of words we'd never expected to be able to publish.
[Photo: St Stev]
Related Stories:
· Train Drivers' Wee Perk [Ananova]
· Public Transportation Love-Hate: Getting From A to Bratislava [Jaunted]
by amandak
2/06/2007 at 10:20 AM
Tags: Sex, Buses, Public Transportation (all tags)
They're a pretty open-minded mob over in
Bulgaria, it seems. You know those handy TV screens that display bus departure times at bus stations? Well, in the evening when the buses in
Sofia are few and far between, bus station managers decided that just showing one bus time was way too boring for passengers. So what did they put up? Soft porn films.
We wanted to give the passengers something to take their minds off the cold and to pass the time while waiting for a bus, and there are unlikely to be children around that time of night.
So said station management. Maybe the kiddies are all tucked up in bed, but does everybody waiting for a bus want to watch pornographic videos on giant plasma screens? Heck yes! Apparently the station security guards keep getting told off for standing in front of the screens and forgetting to do patrols. Let's all go catch a bus (or not) in Bulgaria.
[Photo: jonny yen]
Related Stories:
· Soft Porn for Bus Passengers [Ananova]
· Sofia, So Fresh [Jaunted]
by amandak
1/15/2007 at 9:45 AM
Tags: Beer, Alcohol (all tags)
The European Union welcomed Bulgaria and Romania into its fold from January 1, and there have been a few surprising repercussions. One is the sudden boost in sales of Boza, a Bulgarian beer that is famed for making women's breasts grow.
You see, joining the European Union meant that customs duties and taxes on the beer were eliminated, and it's made it affordable again to non-Bulgarians. The biggest customers are Romanians from just across the border. One Bulgarian was very excited about his purchase:
I've bought a case for my wife to try out. I really hope I see an improvement.
Bar-owners and shopkeepers from the rest of Europe are also cashing in on the breast-beer boom, with an Austrian ski resort owner admitting that getting Boza tax-free was a good enough reason to bring it back for his customers. But if you really want to grow those tits, better get to Bulgaria yourself and be sure you get the original. How the beer knows not to grow breasts on men is a mystery to us.
[Photo: larskflem]
Related Stories:
· Breast-Boosting Beer [Ananova]
· Romania's Page 5 Girls [Jaunted]
by amandak
10/30/2006 at 9:19 AM
Tags: Bulgaria, Men, Picking Up Guys While Traveling (all tags)
If you're looking for handsome guys on your travels, put
Bulgaria on your list. This week in the Bulgarian capital Sofia police were called to deal with a fight over a handsome boy. And we're not talking a conflict between two best girlfriends here, but a brass-knuckles, smashed beer bottle battle between 23 teenage girls.
Twenty-three girls. That's gotta be one especially handsome Bulgarian guy, and we want to know if they're all like that. We figure a trip to this relatively seldom visited part of eastern Europe is more than justified: just be sure you don't take 22 of your friends with you.
[Photo:
vonmachene]
Related Stories:
·
23 Girls Brawl Over Handsome Guy [Focus News]
by amandak
9/19/2006 at 11:19 AM
Tags: Celeb Travel, Scarlett Johansson, Nazi Souvenirs (all tags)
Bulgaria, or Sofia anyway is a city that at one time was a real jewel of Eastern Europe, but it has been trampled on so much throughout every war. It's been bombed. It's been taken over. It's been given up. I mean, it's really been just harassed and of course, seeing remnants of the communist regime there, it's interesting the kind of buildings that they have there. It's like you're almost in a time warp or a kind of broken city somehow.
What's interesting also about it is that the youth there, they have a lot of very promising sort of creative outlets there. There is music and dance and art. There are a lot of young people there who are very enthusiastic about life, and some of them are wanting to join the EU. Others are very much against it. There is a real kind of passion there right now and so in some ways it feels very sort of forward thinking and then in other ways it's like being in a time warp.
There are a lot of strange things like if you go to the markets there, there is all this Nazi paraphernalia that you can buy. It's really interesting. It's very strange, very strange.
Hope Scarlett was able to get all her Nazi paraphernalia through customs, we know she has had some declaration issues in the past.
Related Stories:
· Travel Stories in Bulgaria [Jaunted]
· Black Dahlia Interview [Moviesonline]
by markj
4/21/2006 at 3:23 PM
Tags: Forum Ferreting Feature, Sofia, Bulgaria (all tags)
Online travel forums are filled with gems, if you have the time to dig for them. Luckily we do the dirty work for you in our somewhat regular Forum Ferreting feature.
Bulgaria: It's on everyone's lips, right? Sofia's a party town, there's cheap skiing, cheap seaside resorts, cheap this, cheap that. It gets difficult to tell what's true and what's travel writing B.S., so once again, we'll dip into the magic that is the
Lonely Planet Thorn Tree forum to educate ourselves on the ins and outs of Bulgarian tourism:
Varna: Varna is well worth a visit in the summer, it's a great city. Lively nightlife, laid back attitude and nice beach. It's also a good place to base yourself to explore the rest of the Black Sea coast. Resorts like Sozopol and Nessebar are very pretty, but packed with tourists in summer and accommodation is pretty hard to find and can be very expensive. Varna is the only place along the coast with youth hostels and the prices (food, drink, taxis etc) are much cheaper than elsewhere as there are not so many Western tourists.
Sofia: I think one of the major problems is that the city doesn't have a central focus for people (and tourists) to congregate. Instead, it has many smaller areas -- parks, squares, etc. -- that take a little more time to see and appreciate. It's also not as pedestrian friendly as some other major cities in the region. And it doesn't have a quaint and historic "old town" like some other Bulgarian (and Eastern European) cities. Since it's the major transit hub for the region, you'll probably be heading to Sofia anyway. For that reason, I'd say it's worth a full day, and perhaps two, depending on how much time you have to travel.
Nessebar: If you will be there when the weather is warm, it is a nice place to go and walk around all the little shops that are there. It is beautiful as well --since it is its own peninsula.
Bulgaria--the next Slovakia? Discuss.
Related Stories:·
Forum Ferreting [Jaunted]
by AVB
2/10/2006 at 12:05 PM
Tags: Adult Entertainment (all tags)
Here's a little date to pencil in -- this year Bulgaria's capital will be hosting the Eros show, a chance to meet Eastern European porn stars. As the Sofia News Agency reports: "Hungarian seducer GG Steel [pictured] and her Romanian colleague Dea as well as Ginger Devil, Jasmin Rouge and Titus Steel will be among the VIP guests at the Bulgarian show. There would be three Bulgarian stars, whose names are not revealed, that will also join the erotic show." We've never heard of them either, but don't you wish you had something signed by Ginger Devil? The show, which runs from March 22 to 25, is 18 and over.
Related Stories:
· Eros Show Sofia [Official site]
· Porn Stars Flock to Sofia in March [Sofia News Agency]
by johnrambow
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