In Bulgaria for the Holidays

Pre-holiday Sofia by Alexander Sandev
https://www.facebook.com/alexander.sandev.photography

It’s Monday and this is “Spotted!- All About Bulgaria”, our series in which we highlight interesting articles and tidbits about Bulgaria and share them with you. This week we are dedicating our post to the fast approaching holidays. If you have not already gotten into the holiday spirit, we hope that after reading what we have hand-selected for you, you will! 🙂 Bulgaria is a real treat during this time of year and although nothing really comes close to personally experiencing it, we will do our best to help you get your fair share of the Christmas-cultural-feast that Bulgaria has to offer. 🙂

As always, if you would like us to include a great find of yours in our weekly roundups, please don’t hesitate to contact us via the Contact Me page of this blog. We will be happy to include it in a future post. 🙂

Without further ado, welcome to the Christmas season in Bulgaria!

1) In search of Christmas: Spending the holidays in Bulgaria on Euro Travelogue (Chronicles of wondrous European journeys.) – If you are someone, who has a very low familiarity with Bulgarian culture and traditions and has never spent Christmas in Bulgaria, this is where you would want to start. This article offers a comprehensive overview of how Bulgarians used to and are currently celebrating the winter holidays. To create an accurate and full account of all of the festivities, the author relies on an interview with a local. If you are curious to know what kukeri and koledari are? What was Santa Clause’s name in Bulgaria before 1989? And what it is that Bulgarians eat during the 40 days leading up to Christmas and on Christmas Eve? This is your chance to find out! 🙂

2) 3 Golden Rules for Traveling to Bulgaria on Wandering Educators – If this holiday season you are headed to Bulgaria, be WARNED: Don’t go before you have read these 3 Golden Rules!!! The article is written by our very own editor and offers general advice on how to approach your time there so that you can get the most out of it and enjoy it. Bulgaria is a country with a context-rich culture which makes it an unbelievable experience, BUT only if you are able to crack her code correctly. The right mindset will make all the difference, so before you board that plane make sure you have at least skim through these three. Trust us, you will be glad you did!

3) The Hobbit, Shopping, and a Visit to Sofia’s Christmas Market on Suitcase Sweethearts (American girl meets Bulgarian boy; adventures ensue.)- And to round-off today’s list, we have chosen a semi-local account of a lazy-Christmas-season Sunday written by an American gal who moved to Bulgaria for love. 🙂 The author’s photos of the Christmas market and decorated center of Sofia are magical and will easily transport you there! Through this article you will also see, that although Bulgaria could be quite “Bulgarian” and “strange” to visitors with its many traditions, it could also be very cosmopolitan and quite familiar with its malls, 3D cinemas and holiday market. It is up to you which one of the two (or perhaps both) sides of Bulgaria you will chose to experience, but either way you will be happy you did. 🙂