Street scene in Sofia

Street scene, Sofia Sofia is the capital of Bulgaria, and is to the extreme west of the country, close to the border with former Yugoslavia. We arrived at Sofia in the afternoon, booked into a motel on the outskirts, and went sightseeing.

This was the Cold War era, and Bulgaria had many tourist resorts for holidaymakers from the Soviet Block. East Germany was the most prosperous communist state, and the hotel where we ate in the evening was full of boisterous East German tourists. The ones at our table tucked into steak tartare, mashing raw egg into raw steak - a dish I have never felt comfortable with.

The restaurant was on the first floor, and on the ground floor was a large hall which had been turned into a virtual beer keller for the East Germans. We had fancied a drink ourselves but decided to give it a miss when we entered and were met with a wall of cigarette and pipe smoke.

View photograph taken at the same location in 2004