02 - November 12, 2020: Sofia and Surroundings (Bulgaria)

On the way to Sofia, we don't choose the fastest route, but the most beautiful one through the Balkan Mountains, which gives us great views of high mountains, autumn-colored forests, and even some snow on certain peaks. We continue to enjoy these stunning views in Sofia, where we live on the eighth floor of one of the many panel buildings. From the outside, you can clearly see that they are fifty years old, and the two-story kindergarten in the neighborhood and the smell in the stairwell remind us of our own childhood in the real existing socialism. However, from the inside, we find ourselves in a highly modern IKEA-styled interior design paradise: a really funny mix and the perfect base for exploring Sofia and its surroundings for a few days.

Hidden in an industrial area is the Museum of Socialist Art, where the statues of Dimitrov, Lenin, and socialist workers and peasants stand bravely in the shadow of modern business towers. We encounter this simultaneous presence of old and new at many places in the city, reminding us of East Berlin in the 1990s or early 2000s. While we watch old Ikarus buses, the children discover the latest electric scooters with which we then speed through the city center after visiting the Natural History Museum, fully embracing our tourist cliché.

Also typical for a former socialist capital is the National Palace of Culture, which architecturally reminds us of the surrounding buildings of the television tower and still seems to be one of the central venues for cultural events. After months of abstinence from stage culture, we finally have the chance to experience a dance performance at the Antistatic Dance Festival for one evening (of course under Corona conditions with distance and masks).

In addition to all the urban life, we are repeatedly drawn into nature, which is not far away here in Sofia: With the nearly 2000m-high Vitosha, Sofia has its own mountain with a small ski resort right on its doorstep. The cable car takes us almost 30 minutes towards the summit, and even though there is no snow yet, we find the first ice flowers and signs of winter while hiking in bright sunshine.

A few kilometers further in the Rila Mountains, there are not just a few ice flowers, but real icicles and frozen streams that we climb over to complete our challenging hike to the Rila Lakes. As if the air above 2000m wasn't thin enough, this circular route, announced as "moderate", really demands a lot from us: steep mountain slopes up through rocky deserts, across muddy and partly icy streams, and beyond any kind of paved paths, we are pushed to our limits. While the children initially drag themselves along in a bad mood, they start hopping around like young mountain goats as soon as they discover the first icicles at waterfalls, sliding over the frozen paths, and enjoying the adventure factor that makes us sweat. However, the view over the sea of clouds, the rugged lonely landscape with the crystal-clear summit lakes, rewards every effort, and we are very glad to have mastered this challenge as well. As we bump down the gravel tracks in the twilight with the jeep (the cable car is broken), the bumpy ride almost feels like a massage.

The next challenge is to plan our onward journey. With the second wave of Corona, many countries have also closed their tourist infrastructure due to a lockdown, and it seems increasingly complicated to find suitable intermediate stops on the way back. One of the few countries that can still be visited with a negative test is Serbia: So on Friday, we drive to the Kopaonik Mountains at the border with Kosovo, with a stopover in the beautiful town of Niš, where the ski season has not yet started, but many hiking trails lead us above the clouds once again.