I like to write and read travel blogs. Strange is that I realized this quite hard and late but certainly with the help of the Haveyoubeenhere community. Like any human being, I have various passions and pleasures in life. Music, film, photography, art, nature, gardening, cooking and travel. I didn't know how to choose a niche that would represent me and be badly done! In the end, the niches chose me and helped me understand that travel and photography are the main topics I wrote about. Especially since photography and travel intertwine and help each other.
I left Haveyoubeenhere and got lost in small details about myself. In fact, Haveyoubeenhere is the subject. You may not believe it, but a thousand blogs have been counted in #traveldigest! To mark this celebration, a contest with no less than 2000 Hive in prizes was launched. There are actually several contests and even a raffle. Here are all the details of participation: 2000 Hive contest to celebrate reaching 1000 Travel Digests 🥳
I can't miss this! This is my first participation in the contest with this exciting title: “If I had $1000” Writing Contest" ... Of course it refers to the pleasant situation in which I would have $1000 for a trip.
Maybe because of the fall, maybe because of my age (more plausible) or because I'm currently suspected of being infected with covid-19 (I'm waiting for the test results), I'm now overwhelmed by a great ... nostalgia!
My post for this contest will be about nostalgia.
Nostalgia for places often visited and never bored of them!
I haven't had a $ 1000 budget for a trip so far. In general, my vacation was not longer than 7-10 days and I did not spend more than $ 500 - $ 700 (including my wife's shopping!). I only traveled by car and lived in ordinary hotels.
Before I say what I would do and where I would travel with a budget of $ 1000 I have to explain why I make this choice, I have to say what kind of traveler I am. Because there are many kinds of travelers, we are so special and have various desires and pleasures in life.
There are exploratory travelers, especially young people, who have an unbridled desire to see new places, as many places as possible. Tireless, they move from one location to another, they can't stay long in one place.
There are lazy travelers who want to get to a place where they forget about everyday life, home and work. Where to relax.
There are travelers who pursue luxury and exoticism. Another category and other money.
Finally, a category of nostalgic travelers. They fall in love with certain places and return there regularly.
I like to read the blogs from the Haveyoubeenhere community, I consider the travel blogs the most beautiful, instructive and that urge you at least to dream if you can't travel. However, we can see many unknown parts of this earth through the eyes of our colleagues. I must admit that I was more attracted to the blogs of two Romanian colleagues because in this way I found out about destinations that I didn't know and that are much easier for me now to get there.
A young woman in love with the mountains, 
Another colleague, from Transylvania (meaning also Romania), 
Her blog about Albota made me think seriously about the next trip to my wife's relatives to make a stop at Albota, to see and taste up close the goodies there.
Albota - The Trout Farm With The Best Trout, Buffalo Milk Ice Cream And A Smart Business
These are just two examples of what can be found on the Pinmapple and how we can find inspiration for future trips, chosen of course based on interest, distance and budget. Or we can travel virtually with the help of hundreds of wonderful travel blogs!
You can check here that everything I said is the pure truth: Pinmapple
I like the sea. I love the sea!
I love the roads that flow into the sea. I really like the place by the sea, the fields by the sea where I would have liked to spend my childhood.
That is why, whenever I find such a place, when I see such a road, I'm happy and in a hurry to reach the sea.
I belong to this category of nostalgic travelers. I can't tell you about dozens of places I've visited because in the last thirty years I've only been to five places. Very often in the same places.
Whatever the holiday, these five places I talked about are related to the sea. The sea is my nostalgia!
I would like to take a trip through the five places where I have spent wonderful moments of vacation in the last thirty years. I am old enough (67) to realize that I will no longer have the strength and enough time to get to my favorite places.
My $1000 trip through VamaVeche (Romania), Shabla, Balchik, Sozopol (Bulgaria), Thassos Island (Greece)
That is, my imaginary journey through places that made my life more beautiful. A journey I would never make in its entirety, only in pieces. However, let my imagination calm my nostalgia.
Speaking of imagination, I have to say where I would like to go the most. In the only place in Romania where I was close to the Black Sea, many times in many years. This place, located in the southernmost part of the country, just 2 km from the border with Bulgaria, was the most cosmopolitan vacation spot for young nonconformists and artists (young and old). It is practically a fishing village with a small bay and a beach. Tourists lived in the village, in fishermen's houses or on the beach, in tents. No comfort conditions but a lot of freedom.
Vama Veche
The first stop should be at Vama Veche. It's just that Vama Veche is no longer that idyllic place I knew in my youth. It turned into an expensive resort full of kitsch. I think I will save a lot and make a virtual journey into the past and memory (plus some old photos).
That was the place of a decade of vacation. Until it broke down and then I started going to Bulgaria.
You see that little road at the edge of the cliff, a path. I walked on it hundreds of times, on one side the Black Sea and on the other the plains. In the middle, my son Alexander. He was then 10 years old and was called Bones, because he was very thin and tall.
I loved this place because it was wild, devoid of hotels, restaurants and bars, amusement parks. We have always lived in a small house, where we were warmly welcomed every year. This was our hotel and the restaurant was the table in front where we ate something on the run ...
... because we can't wait to go to the beach. All day on the beach and in the water. The annual cure that wiped the city out of our heads.
Freedom from non-conformism. The swimsuit was not mandatory, whoever wanted to wear it was okay ... whoever wasn't, was okay. In the picture was a young and promising Romanian actress, a very beautiful woman.
It was the perfect place to come with family, children and pets, with friends. It was the place where I planted the love of the sea in my boy's soul. If I look more closely at the photo I realize that Alexander could be called not only "Bones" but even "Ears"!
The friendships of that time have remained forever.
The end of a stage. The end of the dream. The end of the imaginary journey. The end of a face.
I know it's a journey into the past, but passing by VamaVeche on the way to Bulgaria I couldn't ignore what it meant to me and my family.
Bucharest - Vama Veche 260 km
Shabla
My journey continues to Bulgaria, the neighboring country that I could not visit until after communism, the sinister communist regimes in Eastern Europe were destroyed. I did not visit Bulgaria until ten years after I could have easily visited. I was prevented by ignorance, preconceived ideas and the stories of my friends who crossed Bulgaria to reach Greece. I was wrong!
When I started meeting Bulgaria I fell in love with that place. A wonderful country that has some characteristics that are very important to me. It has a much more beautiful and longer Black Sea coast, it is close to Greece, so it is much easier to reach the Greek islands. It is a country with fewer inhabitants and a quieter lifestyle, preferably even if the standard of living is lower (soon I think it will change for the better).
So, I entered Bulgaria. For many years, on the way to Balchik, I passed by a beauty I did not know about. Now comes the first reward of the education I gave to my son, because as a child and from VamaVeche he learned to love the real sea, without luxury and crowds. My son told me about some beaches in Bulgaria, not long after Romania. One of them is Shabla, which I visited this year for the first time. I hope to have a few more years to go there, especially since it is very close to the city where I live, Bucharest.
What shocked me the first time I went to Shabla was the color of the Black Sea water. The most beautiful color I've ever seen. I saw the Black Sea in the north, in the place where the Danube flows but also much further south, in Sozopol. Nowhere have I seen a more beautiful color. Turquoise color!
Shabla is as VamaVeche was thirty or forty years ago. A quiet, uncrowded and free place. But it is a much more beautiful beach, a much more beautiful water. It is one of the regrets of my life that I did not know about this place several years ago.
God, I love these beaches! I missed a lot of pleasure in this life ... because I wasn't paying attention to what I really wanted. I would have liked to stay in such a place for a whole summer. In adolescence and youth.
Wonderful place! This will be a permanent destination for me. That's why I included it in this $ 1000 journey, both imaginary and factual. All my life I wanted to see places I've seen before!
Shabla - Balchik 39 km
Balchik
I leave the beautiful Shabla and head for Balchik. I was in Balchik for about ten years in a row, it was the favorite holiday destination of my family and many of our friends. As we approached the age of fifty, our travel habits changed and the beach was no longer the main attraction. We started to appreciate more the long walks, the relaxation on a terrace by the sea and the comfort of more modern hotels. I found all these in Balchik.
Balchik has no attractive beaches. More rocks and small beaches, not more than a few meters wide.
Going down from the hotel to the sea we have in front of our eyes three flags in the wind. Flag of Bulgaria, host country. Romanian flag. Here is an explanation, this region belonged to the Kingdom of Romania from 1900 to 1940. During this period much has been done for the emancipation and modernization of this city and probably our Bulgarian neighbors appreciate this. Then there is the Russian flag, I don't know why, maybe our Bulgarian friends will be able to enlighten me.
Because I talked about the Romanian contribution to the modernization of the city. The main attraction of this resort is the Castle of Queen Maria of Romania and its famous gardens that have been transformed into a beautiful botanical garden! After this region, southern Dobrogea, was attached to Romania, many artists, writers but especially Romanian painters spent their summers here. They were attracted by the beautiful light, the surrounding white hills and the exoticism of the inhabitants, most of them Turks or Tatars.
Queen Maria, the most beloved queen of the Romans, learned from her friends painters about Balchik, wanted to visit him and fell in love immediately. The castle was built, in fact a holiday villa for the royal family. Now it is a museum visited every summer by hundreds of thousands of tourists, many Romanians, like me. This fact made me love Balchik, besides its beauty it also has historical meanings for me.
Then the Botanical Garden. Wonderful! I visited it every year and I didn't get bored, on the contrary, I found it even more attractive.
Proof that artists are attracted to Balchik are these stones carved on the beach. There are many, a few dozen.
I can say a lot about Balchik, I have written a lot about Balchik and I will do it again in the future. Time no longer allows me to stay, I have to get to the south of Bulgaria, to Sozopol. A later discovery.
Balchik - Sozopol 209 km
Sozopol
Sozopol has another story, strangely related to the way in which Queen Maria arrived in Balchic. Of course, I don't make any wrong comparisons and I can't look like a coincidence, but we also arrived in Sozopol at the recommendation of some painters.
Sozopol is also an attraction for painters. Many Romanian painters painted there, among them our friend Constantin Daradici. Thanks to them I arrived in Sozopol.
With the help of another Romanian painter, who makes some wonderful watercolors, Corneliu Dragan -Targoviste I will show some views of the old town. Because I can't find any of my photos now.
Source: Romanian painters in Sozopol Book
Sozopol, the old town!
Same Black Sea but ... different! Here we are at the southern extremity where we can see the influence of the Mediterranean climate.
The old town is the main attraction. Narrow streets, very old houses but also a lot of shops. The old town is built on a peninsula and the beach is in the small bay.
Very small and wild bays, small bases for fishermen. I wish I could stay there for a while.
In Sozopol we started looking for more comfort, we caught the taste for more relaxation. During the Sozopol period, about five years ago, I looked for more expensive but much more pleasant hotels and restaurants. Expensive for us Easterners, in reality they were very affordable.
Sozopol was a Greek colony in antiquity. There are a lot of relics and museums to visit. I haven't visited them but I hope to make this tour in reality, in the coming years and to go through museums as well. Now I have chosen to relax in front of a wall in the old fortress of Sozopol.
I will tell you more about Sozopol in the following posts. Until then, I want to show you how time has passed over us, from Vama Veche to Sozopol, over me and over my son, Bones, do you remember why that was his nickname?
Some increase, others decrease ... this is life. More than 25 years have passed between Vama Veche and the last Sozopol.
We would have chosen to go only to Sozopol but our son decided we had to make the leap to Greece. He had visited many of the Greek islands and was definitely in love with Greece. He pushed us there, on the nearest Island for us, Thassos.
Sozopol - Thassos 517 km
Thassos
Greece, a dream come true!
Well, now I'm at the top and maximum level for myself. Greece is supreme and again I have to express my regret that I did not find out earlier that I can get there too. After three consecutive vacations there, only the covid-19 pandemic prevented us from going last summer. We were expected but we couldn't get there.
Grand views, a mountain out of the water. Steep cliffs and tourists delighted with everything they can see.
Greece, an Orthodox Christian country, as well as Romania. Because of this, there are multiple links between our countries and we have found with great joy that the Greeks respect and value us. These small churches are everywhere on the island, in blue and white, the colors of the national flag.
Thassos is an island and consequently, to get to it you have to go by ferry. I can't say that it was comfortable for me because I'm afraid of the deep waters, only the joy of being on the island again makes me ignore the fear.
The advantage of not going to a beach, somewhere, in a resort with everything. On the islands, even if the accommodation conditions can sometimes be more precarious, you have instead many places where you can walk and a lot of sights to visit. Here at an impressive monastery.
Ancient vestiges, older than three thousand years. It's hard to describe the feelings that tempt you when you walk through the ruins of the city and see what beautiful things people could do then.
Thassos means a lot, a lot of walking for us. The walk was the main activity, interrupted only by a few short baths in the sea and, of course, by the morning coffee and the pleasant dinners at the tavern. We had our coffee in the morning from another town than Limenaria where our hotel was, 4 km away. In this way we covered 8 km to drink coffee and enjoy the walk through the olive groves and pine forests.
We were lucky to have some wonderful hosts, Alexandra and Dimitris, who received us with hospitality and then we parted with good friends. Their hotel, Hotel Karagiannis, is located on the outskirts of Limenaria, near the pine forest. Away from the crowds in the city center. Now, when I looked more closely at the photo, I noticed that he also photographed Dimitris repairing something upstairs, probably the internet cable.
About the food, wow, I only looked for the traditional food, in the morning coffee and pastry, at lunch the cheap, tasty and famous Gyros...
... and in the evening the real feast began. At the Sotiros family tavern, with tables set in the street, in front of their house. They only opened in the evening, after 8 pm, and you had to come early to find a place at the table. With many customers and a small Sotiros family, the women in the kitchen prepared the ordered food and the boys of the family served meals. The food was brought late, every time I asked how long I had to wait the answer was the same "Five Greek minutes!". Because on the island time passes differently, much slower, the Greeks are extremely relaxed and care about their lifestyles. Siesta is holy!
Although the food was always late, no one was upset because the food was exceptional and the hosts friendly.
As a conclusion. Greece means for me those chairs that are waiting for me at the pleasure table, next to a clay pot with flowers and looking at the endless sea.
In the distance is Mount Athos, nicknamed the Eastern Vatican, a region inhabited by monks for more than a thousand years.
So I would spend the $ 1000, not to see much desired places in this world, but to see places where I was, sometimes, happy.
I'm not a narcissist, I don't like selfies and I usually don't take pictures with myself. Now I made an exception, because I don't consider this blog a regular one. It's special on this 2000 Hive contest to celebrate reaching 1000 Travel Digests 🥳. In these special conditions I wrote the longest blog so far.
I made an imaginary journey, in space and time, and to look maybe more plastic as I got older from the first vacation at VamaVeche, from the 1990s until the last one, in Thassos Island, in 2019, I used this image over the years over me, the marks left on my face.
Now I have to make a calculation to see if I fit in the budget received, of course considering the way back home.
Thassos - Bucharest 658 km
Bucharest - Vama Veche 260 km
Shabla - Balchik 39 km
Balchik - Sozopol 209 km
Sozopol - Thassos 517 km
Thassos - Bucharest 658 km
In total I covered 1683 km.
Costs:
- petrol = $ 130
- road, highway, bridges, ferry taxes = $ 135
- accommodation: 2 nights Balchik; 2 nights Sozopol; 2 nights Limenaria = $ 250
- food at the Shabla; Balchik; Sozopol; Thassos = $ 480
Total = $ 995
I fit in the budget, I even made a small saving. This is what happens in virtual travel, in reality many accidents and unforeseen expenses can occur.
In real life, in our time so complicated by this pandemic, I started writing about this nostalgic journey when I suspected I had become infected with covid-19. I hardly managed to finish this blog, after five days and with the confirmation that I have covid-19. Fortunately, it seems an easier form and I can treat myself from home. I hope it ends well, both for me and my wife.
It's been a long night, in fact it's midnight. I remember the sunsets in Limenaria. Everything is unchanged, on a large scale, of course, and I'm so far away.
