Bulgaria - Serbia - Montenegro

First leg of our Balkans trip in June 2018. We were headed to Sofia, Bulgaria for work, and decided to lengthen the trip with some vacation time before and after the work-days to tour Balkans a bit more as it was quite unexplored territory for us until then.

First up, Bulgaria.

We arrived on a Saturday morning and booked a hotel a little bit out of the city centre for the first night to enjoy some pool time, and it was such a good decision as the weather was gorgeous. Spent Midusmmer Day very relaxingly at hotel Montecito.

Our trip was during the World Cup so we caught games whenever we could.

Sometimes the tech was not on our side. The screen stopped working at half-time during Germany-Sweden game. Sprinted back to our hotel.

We were also watching Brazil-Serbia game at a bar in Montenegro. All the men in the bar were obviously routing for Serbia (or were Serbians themselves). It was so hard to not express too much emotion when Brazil was winning.

Sofia is quite an interesting post-soviet Eastern-European town, with a special Balkan twist. It's Bulgaria’s capital and largest city, with a population of 1 250 000, situated on the lower slopes of Mount Vitosha. It's a modern, youthful city, yet with many soviet-era elements and onion-domed churches, Ottoman mosques and old monuments. It's interesting to stroll around and explore.

St. Alexander Nevsky Cathedral, a Bulgarian Orthodox cathedral.

The Church of St George is an early christian red brick rotunda that's considered the oldest building in Sofia. It's situated in the courtyard between the Sheraton Hotel and the Presidency palace.

A governmental office and H&M in the same building. Why not? It's something very typical to Sofia, for example there was a store, a theatre and a casino basically situated at the Presidential palace's complex.

President's office.

The Largo is called the complex of buildings in downtown Sofia, built in the 1950s with the intention to become the new representative centre. It's a good example of Socialist Classicism architecture. It consists of administrative offices of National Assembly of Bulgaria; the TZUM department store; the Council of Ministers of Bulgaria; the President's Office; the Sofia Hotel Balkan and the Ministry of Education.

St. Sedmochislenitsi Church was created in 1902 on the base of an abandoned Ottoman mosque. Now, it's a Bulgarian Orthodox church

The Russian Church of St Nicholas the Miracle-Maker - a Russian Orthodox church.

Food was pretty great! Lots of meat, different cheeses, herbs and spices.

Our Plenary Meetings were held in the National Palace of Culture. Our buses were escorted there by the police, was quite special, and never any traffic :)

The Palace is said to be the largest, multifunctional conference and exhibition centre in south-eastern Europe.

Our meetings were on the one but last floor and lunch on the last floor, it would have been such a perfect view over the city but they had put fences with huge banners up, so it covered pretty much the whole view. So at breaks we were all trying to peek through the uncovered spots, enjoy the view and take some photos.

The palace is quite soviet inside and out, but the meeting room was super comfy and the fountains boulevard in front of it leading to the Vitosha Boulevard (the main commercial street) is quite beautiful!

Tsar Ivan Shishman street feauturing some murals, cozy cafes, hipster lunch spots and quirky stores.

A way to town from our hotel.

Before the official dinner organised by the Bulgarian team up in the mountains.

After Bulgaria it was time to board the Niš Express and head to Serbia.

In just 3 short hours we were in Niš.

Niš is one of the older cities in Serbia, it's the third-largest city with a population of around 187 000 in the city and 250 000 in the administrative area. It's a vibrant town, with an old town part or pedestrian streets with bustling terraces and welcoming food joints. Beer is cheap and good, food is simple and just delicious. It's old and new at the same time and was somehow unexpectedly lovely and memorable.

Bye Niš and hello Montenegro!

We mainly travelled with night buses, I quite enjoy waking up in a new town or even country every morning! Excluding the boarders where you're forced to wake up, it's possible to get a pretty decent night sleep if the buses don't get too crowded.

Fresh pastries from a local bakery on a rainy morning at 6 am in Podgorica, Montenegro.

We did a quick tour of Podgorica's new town and along the riverside but decided to keep it short and head to Kotor instead to explore the old town.

Anastasia had been to Montenegro 8 years ago and was sure Podgorica had a beautiful old town as well. When we asked at a cafeteria which way is the old town, the waitress was very confused, trying to explain to us they basically had no old town as a result of the 70+ bombings the area endured from both Nazi and Allied forces during World War II. So A had to remember where the magnificent old town was, if not here, with the help of maps.me we soon settled on Kotor.

Kotor!

Kotor is a fortified town on Montenegro’s Adriatic coast, in a bay near the limestone cliffs of Mt. Lovćen. With it's narrow winding streets, medieval squares and Romanesque churches it's quite different from most towns in Europe. The city and it's picturesque landscape were awarded World Heritage Site status.

Kotor has an unusually high cat population, there is also an official feeding place on one square in the old town, a museum dedicated to cats and most souvenirs feature cats as well. There is no official explanation why, but, as once Kotor was a busy trading port – with the ships came cats from all around the world. Some of them got left behind and that's why nowadays Kotor has a very large and multicultural kitty population.