Plovdiv; Friday, 11 October, 2024

I’d stayed overnight in near Heathrow as it was an early morning flight. So early in fact that after checking out and heading over to the bus stop to catch a bus down into the airport I ended up on one of the last N9 night buses of the night.

I had a speedy and smooth journey through the airport and onto the plane which, despite some computer glitches and an air traffic control restriction, left only 10 minutes late for the 3 hour flight over to Bulgaria.

With just a few light misty clouds and a southern track pretty much following the M25 we were treated to some excellent views of London on our way out of the country, and with the cloud thinning a few miles out equally stunning views of Sofia and the airport as we flew past and round to land.

A very quick journey through the airport and straight onto a metro into town. When I did the journey last year I ended up having to wait nearly 10 minutes to change metro lines at Serdika station in the very centre, and looking at the timings of the metro I was on, and the connection, it looked like that was going to happen again, so instead I hopped off a couple of stops earlier at a station just over 1Km from the hotel and walked over to the hotel.

The walk was pleasant, though quite sticky as the humidity was high and from the clouds it was pretty clear that a storm was heading towards the city. Just a couple of minutes after checking in and getting up to my room the first spots of rain were falling, which pretty quickly turned into a heavy drizzle and then a pounding thunder storm. Even once the thunder had passed the rain continued, right through the afternoon and on long into the evening.

If this had been my first ever visit to Sofia I would have been a bit disappointed as there would have been lots of things to see, but as this was my third visit to the Bulgarian capital, and was only ever a passing through stop, I didn’t really mind.

It also helped that my room had been upgraded from the basic entry room all the way to a King Panoramic Executive room located on the top floor of the hotel complete with a balcony – not much use in the weather – but more importantly, access to the executive lounge. This meant I had complimentary snacks, beverages and between 6 and 8 a light buffet, so I didn’t really need to leave the hotel at all.

In the end I spent the whole of the afternoon and evening in the hotel before turning in early to try and catch up on some of the lost sleep from the morning.