I got my bags packed on a roll heading out there and I'm ready to go looking real good

in my passport photo.

Amateur Traveler episode 691. Today the Amateur Traveler talks about craftsmen and churches,

one last stand, communism, Byzantine's, Ottomans, and Thracians,

as we go to the country of Bulgaria.

Welcome to the amateur traveler. I'm your host Chris Christensen. With no further

ado let's talk about a road trip through Bulgaria. I'd like to welcome to

the show Tom and Patty Burckett who are coming to us from Ohio

but come to talk to us about Bulgaria. Tom and Patty welcome to the show.

Thank you.

Hi there.

And what is your connection to Bulgaria?

Well, I have a cousin who's in the U.S. Foreign Service

and he's posted in Bulgaria currently and is married to a Bulgarian woman.

And we decided to celebrate our 48th wedding anniversary that we would like to do a trip that was a bit more exotic than we usually do. And that since we had a

we had a connection there in Bulgaria and it heard on your show

that Bulgaria is a country that is more like Europe might have been several decades ago, but it would be an

interesting place to visit and we discovered that that was absolutely true.

Well I think that feeds into my next question which is why should someone go to Bulgaria?

Well interestingly we got that question a lot from all of our friends and family.

I am not surprised.

And actually also from many Bulgarians who said, why did you, why did you come here?

...