Greece 2

Good evening people all over the world

As I promised at the beginning of the week, I’m here with a second blog about Greece. Today is our last evening in Greece and tomorrow we’ll go to our next destination.

We started the week in the a small hotel in the suburbs of Athens were we’ve met Archangelos. He learned us to appreciate the typical Greek dishes and he also gave us some interesting sites to visit in Athens. Archangelos carried us to the city centre and from there on we  discovered the city of Athens with the metro (in Athens also known as the Αττικό Mετρό) It was a very clever idea from Archangelos  to cross the city with the metro because traffic in the city is very hectic.

We started the day with visiting some nice museums in Athens such as the National Archaeological Museum and the New Acropolis Museum. The National Archaeological Museum houses some of the most important artifacts from a variety of archaeological locations around Greece from prehistory to late antiquity. It was very easy with the metro to find this museum because it located next to the Omonoia metro station. The second (and the last) museum we visited in Athens was the New Acropolis Museum. This is an archaeological museum focused on the findings of the archaeological site of the Acropolis of Athens. Nearly 4,000 objects are exhibited over an area of 14,000 square meters. As the museum is built over an extensive archaeological site, the floor, outside and inside, is often transparent using glass and thus the visitor can see the excavations below. The museum also provides an amphitheatre, a virtual theatre and a hall for temporary exhibitions.

So that was enough culture for this week. We ended our stay in Athens with a shopping afternoon for the girls. During the shopping we were surprised about the number of stores with are closed in the city center. The last year, we saw in the media that the Euro crisis had a enormous impact on the Economy, but if you see such a number of closed shops, you know that it is very hard to survive in Greece for the moment.

The next four days, we planned to enjoy life in a chill and relaxed way. The first days, we planned a visit to Crete and more specific to the party city Hersonissos because partying is also a very important part of discovering a country for students. The last days, we planned to chill out on the island Rhodes, which is located northeast of Crete.

In Belgium, there was a television program about Hersonissos called  Oh oh Cherso where some young people had the time of their lives in this city. For us, it was a little disappointment to stay 2 days in this city because the city was very commercial and there is nothing else to do excepted for partying at night.

In contrast with Crete, Rhodes was very nice. We hired a small wooden cottage on the beach with a very nice view over the Mediterranean sea and the most beautiful sunsets I’ve ever seen in my life. During the day we did some surfing and some jet skiing and every night we’ve eaten freshly caught fish from the Mediterranean Sea in a typical Greek restaurant.

So as a conclusion, I can say that it was very nice country to visit. Even if it is very hard to survive in this country now due to the economic crisis, people stay very friendly and helpful.

Greetz

Stijn De Wulf

Greece

Greece

Hello Belgium!

A next week, so a next country for us to visit. Monday we travelled from Bulgaria to Greece by airplane. The flight was quite spectacular because there were a lot of thunderstorms around us. So the airplane was shaking from one side to the other because the heavy thermal winds. But we survived it and now we here in the beautiful country Greece.

“Welcome to Hellas” were the first words the hotel manager from our cosy hotel said to us. When he was helping to bring our luggage to the rooms he explained us that Hellenic Republic is the official name from Greece, but foreign people often say Hellas. So that was the reason he greeted us in this way.

Now we’re settled in a very small and beautiful hotel in the suburbs from Athens for one extra night, but afterwards we’ll travel to the rest of the country. In Bulgaria, we mostly travelled by bike, but this week we’ll travel with almost everything that can help us getting to the places we wish.

This week is prepared well because three years ago, me and my family had planned to visit the peninsula Greece and some of the islands around it such as Crete and Rhodes. Afterwards, we changed plans and we went to Italy that summer, but my mother already prepared a lot about Greece in many aspects such as transports, places to visit, cities to visit, museums to visit, etc.

So we asked our hotel manager Archangelos to have a quick look at the information my mother has prepared, because he can eventually give us some additional tips or tell us give us some addresses from places we have to visit during our stay in Greece. But he was very surprised about the research work my mother did and continued staring at the part “typical Greek dishes. After a while he explained us that he started 5 years ago with this hotel and before that, he was a chef in a famous Greek restaurant in the city centre of Thessaloniki.

Archangelos is such a nice person. I’m very glad that I met this man. But we are here to visit Greece, so we started our visit with a city tour around Athens. Athens it the capital city and also the biggest city in Greece. The city Athens has a population of 655.780 inhabitants and the suburbs are even bigger with 3.074.160 inhabitants. Athens is a very old and historical city and well known as the home of Plato's Academy and Aristotle's Lyceum.

The cultural visits are for later on this week. Now it was only a quick meet and greet with this city. Around 6 o’clock, we were back in the hotel. We took a shower and when we came back from our rooms, we were surprised by the delicious smell of fresh prepared food. Archangelos prepared skordalia with hummus, vegetables and pita for us. Skordalia can be traced back to ancient Greece and contains thick purée of walnuts, almonds, crushed garlic and olive oil.

I know for sure after this delicious meal that I love the Greek food and I hope to taste more of that Greek food in the coming week. Now I have to go to bed, because the alarm will ring early tomorrow morning.

I promise to write a second blog this week about Greece because I really love this country.

Greetz from Hellas!

Stijn De Wulf

http://www.grieksegids.nl/namen/jongensnamen.php

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Athens

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greece

http://www.visitgreece.gr

Bulgaria 2

Helloo,

At this moment I have a bit free time to write a new article for the blog. Bulgaria is really beautiful. In the future I will come more to this country.

We have travelled already from Apriltsi to Batoshevo. Nearby the Batoshevo monastery we had a picnic in the yard. The next milestone was the town of Gabrovo. There we had meet a guide who took us by car to the “Etura”. The Etura is an open air ethnographic museum. One of the most beautiful Monasteries.

On day 5 we rode from Gabrovo to Bzoshentsi. After an ascent followed by a descent, we arrived in Tryavna. There we spent some time sightseeing and enjoyed a lunch in the centre. We visited also the Bozhentsi architectural reserve.

On day 6 we visited the Dryanova monastery in the morning. After that we started cycling from Yalovo. We made a short stop at the Kilifareve Monastery and continued to the town of Elena which is some 48km from the start and from the final destination.

Yesterday we continued cycling to the last point of the trip, the Arbanasi architectural reserve. The landscape includes meadows, pastures, cultivated lands, shrubby hills and finally a beautiful plateau over Velika Tarnovo. After a few walks among the old houses we went for a lunch and sightseeing tour in Veliko Turnovo. That is one of the old capitals of Bulgaria. In the afternoon we transferred to Plovdiv for overnight.

At least I will give you some general information about the country. The total area of Bulgaria is 110,994 kilometers. That ranks it as the world’s 105^th-largest country. Like a mentioned before, Bulgaria have several beautiful topographical features: the Danubian Plain, the Balkan Mountains, the Thracian Plain and the Rhodope Mountains the climate is temperate with cold winters and hot summers.

I think everybody knows the Kyoto Protocol. I will explain it in a few words: the Kyoto Protocol aimed at fighting global warming. Bulgaria adopted the Kyoto protocol; they completed the protocol’s objectives by reducing carbon dioxide emissions from 1990 to 2009 by 30%.

Bulgaria is a parliamentary democracy. The most powerful position is that of the prime minister. In 2011 Rosen Pleveneliev was elected to succeed Parnanov. Bulgaria is a unitary state. That means that it is a state governed as one single unit in which the central government is supreme and any administrative divisions exercise only powers that their central government chooses to delegate.

Today we will travel to another country. I hope I’ll see you soon!

Greetz

Jolien Masscheleyn

Sources:

http://www.lonelyplanet.com/bulgaria/tours/guided-cycle/balkan-mountains-cycle?lpaffil=fbta1##ixzz1rnyeKuqr
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unitary_state

Bulgaria

Сутрин, Как сте?

This is how you say ‘Heloow, how are you?’ in Bulgaria. I really wanted to visit Bulgaria because; Bulgaria remains largely untouched and unvisited by tourists. Bulgaria is bordered by Romania to the north, Serbia and the Republic of Macedonia to the west, Greece and Turkey to the south and the Black Sea to the east. 10 years ago Bulgaria had the image of cheap wine downed at student house parties, budget ski holidays and umbrella-wielding Cold Wars, but today Bulgaria is a vastly different country from what it was even 10 years ago.

Getting around the country is easy and cheap. You can use public transport to ferry between the cities. Otherwise prices have risen since Bulgaria became a member of the EU, but if I compare it with other countries of Europe, Bulgaria is still a cheap destination.

Two days ago we’ve travelled from Hungary to Bulgaria. In Bulgaria it is 1 hour later than in Belgium. Yesterday we started a tour through Bulgaria on the bicycle. We started from the tiny village of Goliam Izvo. We will pass the Central Balkan National Park, the narrow roads meander through valleys, forests and quaint villages that haven’t changed for centuries.

Along the route we will visit several historic Orthodox monasteries, many churches with ancient icons. And last but not least we will end in Velika Tarnova. That is one of the most charming Balkan towns and the former Bulgarian capital.

So today we travelled from Goliam Izvor to Ribarista village. That was about 70 km. Our first stop was at Malak Izvor village, there we visited the monastery after that we continued to Ribaritsa village via the town of Teteven. There we slept at a hotel.

Tomorrow we will pass to Shipkovo. This trip will be about 74 km. From Ribaritsa village the road goes all the way dawn to the town of Troyan passing through the village of Shipkovo where we will take a refreshing bath in the mineral water swimming pools. Then we would take a lunch in Troyan town centre and visit the Pottery and Craft Exhibition nearby the famous Troyan monastery. We will spend the night in Apriltsi village.

At this moment I haven’t enough time to write everything down, because we have to go to another hotel. I hope I can write something in the next week. Otherwise you will hear me in two weeks. 

Поздрави

‘Greetz’

Jolien Masscheleyn

 Sources:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulgaria

http://www.lonelyplanet.com/bulgaria

http://www.lonelyplanet.com/bulgaria/tours/guided-cycle/balkan-mountains-cycle?lpaffil=fbta1

Hungary

Szervusz! (means hellow)

I can't believe another week has already passed! Time is going so fast when you’re having fun ! Still, it remains difficult to adjust when you enter another country because they all have another climate, culture, language, etcetera…

A few days ago we arrived at Nyíregyháza (in the past it was called only Nyír). It’s a 200-year-old town with a lot of important architectural values, but the most valuable monument of the town is the baroque Lutheran church. The church is one of the oldest buildings in the city and is located on the highest point in the old town on Luther Square. I am convinced no one is interested in it (me either) but we are still Christians. ;)

Hungary is also well-known for its hot springs. It’s the world leader in medicinal spa vacationing because there are at least 400 hot springs in the whole country. The people from the hotel say Budapest is often called the Spa Capital, so we were very curious to see it. Meanwhile we’ve already visited this capital and it was a very nice experience. We asked the inhabitants to give us some more information about the thermal baths and they explained that those baths mean the same to Budapest as the boulangeries mean to Paris.

The thermal bath was amazing ! We had the additional advantage that the weather is warmer because it’s spring, so we could stay outside for longer time and enjoy the sun while sitting in hot water. We could also combine it with a massage, but our budget is limited and actually we don’t like it when strangers are touching us ! :p

After this special experience we decided to go to the city, which is the most important junction and cultural heart of Central Europe. We visited a lot of main sights such as castle hill, Parliament building which is the third largest in the world, the Baroque castle which is the second largest in the world,  etcetera…  So they may be proud to have such an amazing city !

Yesterday was our last day in Hungary so we decided to go shopping at Duna Plaza shopping mall. It has over 120 shops, so a paradise for every woman ! ;)

When we were in Belgium, some parts of the family said: “Hungary is one of the most beautiful countries in Europe. If you’ve visited it once, you will definitely return !!” AND WE AGREE !! We didn’t expect it because we didn’t know much about Hungary. If anyone would ask mine opinion, I would definitely recommend it !!

Now we have to say goodbye, but no panic ! Within one week we are back with another story !

See you later friends !

Greets Elke

Sources:
http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hongarije
http://www.gotohungary.com/
http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ny%C3%ADregyh%C3%A1za
http://www.budapest.com/