Backpacking the Balkans 2019

03/08/2019 So. Here we are. The last day of the trip. Now there isn’t much to say about today except from the fact that the leaders could have sailed home on their own tears from last night when they exchanged gifts - and I laughed at them.  We had a not-so-much lie in of 7:30 (although this may have been a little worse for the leaders, seeing as they experienced a little disturbance in the night when a 'fight' occurred and a young male was kicked out of the hostel). Moving on to this morning, when I woke up to find that we had to use the toilets on a different floor because the kebab shop may have been handing out bad food to drunken individuals who could not control themselves.  After a quick pack we headed to the airport via our private transfer (thanks Alice, I don’t think we could have dealt with anymore of your public-transport-induced-stress!) and waited to check in. Lots of Milka later, we were heading on to the plane and fast track to an hour later and ...

02/08/2019 Hi! It's Eleanor again. Today was our last full day in the Balkans - we can't believe it's nearly time to go home! Before all of that though, we had booked a full day tour of Rila Monastery, Boyana church and the Cave of St. Ivan, Bulgaria's most important religious sites. We went to Billa early in the morning to buy breakfast and lunch for the day. I bought a delicious pain au chocolat and ate it in front of the church where we were meeting the Rila Monastery tour group. Our group was made up of 2 Americans and 3 Bulgarian-Canadians, as well as us. It was an hour and a half trip to the monastery, and when we got there we had the unsettling realisation that it was quite cold up there and none of us had brought a jumper! We had a tour around the monastery for about an hour, which involved the tour guide telling us to look at some Saint "figures" in a glass case which turned out to be severed fingers. After the tour we had some free time, so we t...

01/08/2019 Hi it’s Emma G here! In the morning, we woke up boiling hot, and a bit startled to be 5 feet off the ground in our beds. After having some cereal bars and fruit for breakfast, we trekked down the hill to the museum. The museum was about the history of the neolithic village and the people who lived in them before them. While everyone was looking around the museum, Gaby, Eleanor and I sat down (finally) around a table and made some pretty patterns out of some tiles. However, after Eleanor and I had finished our pattern that we had put our heart and soul into, Gaby insisted on taking some of our tiles so she could use them for her own ‘masterpiece’. When she finished her box of tiles masterpiece, she posed quite proudly for a photo while Eleanor and I laughed at it. When we had finished in the museum, we had to conquer the dreaded hill climb. To cope through the heat and the never ending walking, we sang Disney songs, well attempted to anyway. Also, we made some...

31/07/2019 Hi, it’s Higgy again. Today we spent the morning in Sofia, which was amazing, I loved all the different architecture and the gardens were incredible. I thought the cathedral (the St. Alexander Nevsky Cathedral) was absolutely stunning! The paintings within the cathedral were extraordinary, although we weren’t allowed to take any photographs inside. In my opinion it is some of the best work I’ve seen on the trip. We had some fun around the fountain outside the National Theatre too, which consisted of me, Elenor and Ellie imitating the stature in the centre. We later returned to the hostel to collect our bags for the night ahead: camping in a Neolithic hut which I wasn’t too excited for if I’m being completely honest (although it was agreed between all of us as they definitely completed the challenge to sleep in an unusual place). We were travelling to Chavdar by train, another mode of transport to add to our ever-increasing list - we are definitely past the four mo...

30/07/2019 Hi, it’s Annie again! The morning began being woken up on an overnight bus going through border control into Serbia. Not all was bad as one of the border controllers looked a lot like a younger Jeremy Renner! However, more bad luck struck again as I began to panic that I would loose control of my bladder whilst still on the overnight bus with 1 hour left till our stop. The panic rose as I had to take a stopper as I feared I would - in no delicate manner - poo myself! Once I had taken the stopper I thought the troubles had past... I was wrong! I then became worried that I would loose control of my bladder and the driver did not seem to posses the key for the toilet! This was when me and Emma P decided to strengthen our friendship by her quick thinking resulting in me peeing in a sour cream and chive Pringles tube whilst she held a towel over me, blocking me from any innocent eyes. Definitely a backpacking experience I had not planned in having! Nevertheless, Tory and E...