Andrea goes exploring again!

I've now been in Bulgaria 11 days. Starting in Ruse I got a glimpse of Bulgaria's interior, which was promising, and then the sea drew me to it and I headed to one of the least touristy areas along the Black Sea coast, Balchik. I love the sea. The astrologers among you will say it's because my star sign is Cancer. Can't say I hold with all that, I just love water. I'm less enamoured of sand. I could be wearing a hazmat suit and that stuff would still get in places it shouldn't, but the sea, I love it  ❤️❤️❤️ Anyway, Ruse and Balchik = so far so good, but from there, Varna, Nessebar and Burgas (to a lesser degree) really didn't float my boat (groan...) and were only salvaged by having Shalini with me. I've heard many people say how beautiful Bulgaria is and so I'll admit I've been a bit disappointed up to now, as even the scenery in between the resorts and taking into account the fact that it's winter, there's not been an awful lot to shou

Today I said bye to the lovely Shalini, as she headed back to the UK from her visit to see me as I travelled along the Black Sea coast in Bulgaria. Typically today has been beautifully sunny and a lovely day for exploring. Sadly whilst Shalini was with me the weather was dull at best and tipping it down at worst. However, being British we didn't let a little thing like the weather put us off! Shalini flew into Varna to meet me and we started our 'adventure a deux' there. Or first hotel was the Panorama Hotel which we thought had provided us with ready rolled straws to snort our cocaine... But they turned out to be random Trip Advisor advertisements! After catching up on a little of the sleep we had lost the night before due to Wizz air's ridiculous flight schedules we went for a look at the Roman Thermal Bath ruins  and then we aimed for the History of Medicine museum which we never did find, and ended up going past the naval museum instead and then we headed along the

On Sunday I made my way by train from Bucharest down to Ruse, or Russe, or Rouse or  Русе   depending on how you want to spell it. Apparently it's also know as Rustchuk but I didn't come across that when I was there. I knew it as Ruse so I'm going to stick with that spelling! It was a pretty uneventful journey other than the fact that my reservation on the train was for a seat that didn't exist. They had most seats up to 40 and then most seats after 42 but not 41 which is what I was after. I say most as the numbering scheme follows no logical sense that I can make out and seat numbers seem to be vaguely located together but in no kind of order. It's testament to how relaxed I've become in that this doesn't bother me in the slightest (surprising isn't it!), I just find it somewhat curious and would appreciate knowing how this numbering scheme developed! It also helped that very few other people seemed to want to go to Ruse and so the train was virtually e