This church on the shoreline of Istanbul looks ornate yet pretty normal – that is until you go up and take a closer look. The Bulgarian St. Stephen Church isn't made of stone but rather of cast iron. It's a rare survival of a 19th-century craze in prefab cast-iron ...Click on a label to read posts from that part of the world.
Bulgaria
A Cast-Iron Church In Istanbul
This church on the shoreline of Istanbul looks ornate yet pretty normal – that is until you go up and take a closer look. The Bulgarian St. Stephen Church isn't made of stone but rather of cast iron. It's a rare survival of a 19th-century craze in prefab cast-iron ...Survey Ranks 'World's Most Unfriendliest' Countries
Have you ever been to a country that just seems to give tourists the cold shoulder? Now, there are some figures behind those unwelcome feelings; the World Economic Forum has put together a report that ranks countries based on how friendly they are to tourists.
The ...Temple To Phallic God Priapus Found In Bulgaria?
There's something weird going on in the Bulgarian Black Sea port of Sozopol.
Last year, Bulgarian archaeologists dug up the graves of two vampires and analyzed the purported bones of John the Baptist. Now the Sofia Globe reports they've found a temple to the Classical ...Tim Leffel On The World's 21 Cheapest Countries
Tim Leffel's mission is to help skinflints like me find travel destinations they can afford. He traveled around the world on a shoestring with his wife three times and decided to write a book about the world's cheapest countries after realizing that there was no single ...A Traveler In The Foreign Service: Europe's 'Most Beautiful' Women And Other Reasons To Love Bulgaria
I had to go to Bulgaria just to see if Bill Bryson was full of crap. In his book, "Neither Here Nor There," published in 1991, Bryson wrote, "Sofia has, without any doubt, the most beautiful women in Europe." I was in college when I read the book, and at the tail end of the ...Archaeologists Analyze John the Baptist's Bones
The Black Sea port of Sozopol has been making the news quite a bit lately. First, Bulgarian archaeologists uncovered two vampire skeletons there, and now its relics of John the Baptist have been submitted to scientific analysis.
Back in 2010, archaeologists uncovered six ...Vampire Skeleton On Display In Bulgaria
Last week we brought you the story that archaeologists had discovered two vampire graves in Bulgaria. Now one of those skeletons, complete with an iron spike through his chest, is going on display at the National History Museum in the Bulgarian capital Sofia.
The medieval ...Vampire Graves Dug Up In Bulgaria
Bulgarian archaeologists have discovered two vampire graves in the city of Sozopol on the Black Sea. The burials, which are about 700 years old, were each held down with a massive iron stake through the chest. One vampire was buried in the apse of a church – a spot ...A Traveler In The Foreign Service: Bulgaria Is The Place To Break Down
Foreign Service Officers (FSO's) know how desirable their post is upon discovering how many houseguests they receive. If you live in Paris, people who you once shared a peanut butter sandwich with in grammar school and long lost cousins you don't like to begin with will come ...Photo Of The Day: Catching Some Rays
Today's Photo of the Day was taken indoors but the bright lights and orange glow make it feel like a hot summer day, or perhaps the inside of a tanning bed. Either is likely at the Bulgarian resort town of Varna where Flickr user PMania85 captured this scene with an ...Traditional holiday beverages from around the world
Americans aren't very creative when it comes to traditional holiday beverages (do, however, look for my upcoming story on Boulder's banging mixology scene, which includes some killer contemporary winter cocktails). Historically, though, we're more of an eggnog/mulled ...Museum of Socialist Art to open in Bulgaria
A Museum of Socialist Art is opening next month in Sofia, the capital of Bulgaria. The museum exhibits statues of Lenin, paintings of Bulgarian Communist Party leaders, and other artwork from Soviet times.
The former Eastern Bloc country is the last such nation to open a ...Israel, Chile, Slovak Republic among countries with highest adventure travel potential
A new study conducted by George Washington University, Vital Wave Consulting, and the Adventure Travel Trade Association (ATTA) shows that Israel, Chile, and the Slovak Republic led the way in adventure tourism in 2010. The study, which resulted in the third annual Adventure ...Archaeologists explore "Pompeiis" in Bulgaria and El Salvador
Pompeii is an archaeological wonder, an entire Roman town preserved by a volcanic eruption. Now archaeologists are investigating two other "Pompeiis" to learn more about the past.
In El Salvador, a team has discovered a village dating to c. 630 AD that was covered in ...Dive Communist plane off the coast of Bulgaria
Fish are pretty and shipwrecks are cool to explore, but how would you like to dive a
Communist airplane in the Black Sea? A 1971 Soviet-made Tupolev-154 was submerged this week off the coast of Bulgaria to create an artificial reef for SCUBA divers. Orlin Tsanev, chairman ...Five ways to get more European stamps in your passport
Lake Ohrid, Macedonia.
Yesterday, I wrote about the fact that European passport stamps have become harder and harder to get. The expansion of the Schengen zone has reduced the number of times tourists are compelled to show their passports to immigration officials. For ...Schengen and the disappearance of European passport stamps
Creative new use for border crossing posts at German/Austrian border.
In the late 1980s, an American spending a summer traveling across Europe with a Eurailpass would see his or her passport stamped possibly dozens of times. With a few exceptions, every time a border ...Photo of the day (12.17.10)
Today's whimsical Photo of the Day was snapped in Sofia, Bulgaria, by Flickr user BaboMike. I'm not sure what's most appealing here--is it the meticulous representation of the policeman's reflective jacket? His strange, tiny eyes? His diminutive traffic sign? Could it be ...Weekending: Varna, Bulgaria
Back in September, the end of the Muslim month of Ramadan offered locals and expats like me an excuse to go on holiday while our American friends were celebrating the end of summer and Labor Day. With more time to explore than a typical Weekending trip, I checked out ...Gadling's favorite destinations for 2011
We travel a lot, to destinations both well-known and unfamiliar. In our defense, it is our job to travel like mad, to explore the world and then write about our discoveries.
Though most travel writers find something or other of interest in most places we visit, there ...
