Република България 1988

My first holiday by myself - 18 years old - was to Bulgaria, the most exotic destination I could think of and afford on my budget. I took a train to the north of Greece and crossed the border to Bulgaria at Kulata/Кулата. Prerequisite for a visa was a reservation for a certain number of nights with a state-approved landlord or hotel. For all other nights a stamp for each night had to be collected on a card.

1988 was the year before the Communist Party was forced to give up its political monopoly in November 1989 and in the parks of the capital Sofia there were anti-government protests. It appears the protests originated in Ruse in November 1987 against the gassing and protecting fundamental human rights.

Trans Europe by train

Over the years I took countless trains far into Southern and Eastern Europe, mostly with an Interrail ticket which was available for anybody between the age of 18 and 26. Destinations were: Greece, Bulgaria, Rumania, Hungary, Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia.

Greek Shepard. Photo taken on my first ‘far away’ holiday without parents at 17.

The trains were great. You could open a window and stick your head out of the window until you became tired of the wind. These photographs were made during one journey to Slovenia somewhere in the 1990s and a couple of years after Slovenia became independent (1991).