Moving On From Sofia
If you're flying out of Sofia, call 02/7932 3211 for flight information; bus #84 runs every ten to fifteen minutes from the Orlov Most to the airport, 10km east of town. When leaving Sofia by train , remember that tickets for lines covering the northern half of Bulgaria (including the routes to Lom, Vidin, Ruse and Varna) are sold on the ground floor of the station; all others in the basement. The system of platform numbering is incredibly confusing (each platform is also divided into iztok - eastern - and zapad - western - sections, referred to as i or and z or respectively on the departures board), so allow plenty of time to catch your train. Beware, also, of pickpockets, beggars and con merchants who offer to help you onto your train, then make aggressive demands for money. To beat the queues, you can make advance bookings at the Transport Service Centre , or TsKTON, in the basement shopping arcade below the NDK (Mon-Fri 7am-7.30pm, Sat 7am-2.30pm; domestic tel 02/658402, international tel 02/657185). The same office handles bookings for sleeper services, as well as selling tickets for international trains . International tickets can also be bought from a counter in the Central Station or from the Rila Bureau, General Gurko 5 (Mon-Fri 9am-7pm, Sat 9am-3pm; tel 02/987 0777). Some inter-city buses can be booked in advance from the TsKTON office, although in most cases you'll have to trek out to the relevant bus station in order to buy a ticket. The most important of these is the bus park behind the Hotel Princess (opposite the central station), where a confusing array of private companies operates services to the provinces. Unfortunately there's little in the way of timetable information, although some companies maintain ticket kiosks listing selected departure times and selling tickets in advance. Otherwise the only thing to do is to arrive early and look for destinations and departure times posted in individual bus windscreens. Some private bus companies (including the biggest two, Etap and Group) use a bus park on the opposite side of bul. Knyaginya Mariya Luiza from the Hotel Princess . Things are slightly better organized here, making it easier to survey individual companies' departure boards and make reservations in advance. A few services still use the old state-run bus stations in suburban Sofia - Avtogara Poduyane, Avtogara Ovcha Kupel and Avtogara Yug - which serve different out-of-town regions. To get to Avtogara Poduyane (destinations to the north and northeast) on ul. Todorini Kukli, take bus #75 from Orlov Most, or trolleybus #1 from bul. Levski. For Avtogara Ovcha Kupel (destinations to the south) take tram #5 from behind the Palace of Justice, and get off at the eleventh stop; for Avtogara Yug (destinations to the southeast), on bul. Dragan Tsankov, catch tram #2 from pl. Sveta Nedelya, tram #2 or #19 from Graf Ignatiev, or minibus #23 from Tzum. Alight at the stop called Nadlez Darvenitsa, just beyond the Park-Hotel Moskva , and the bus station is immediately beneath you. There are two international terminals offering services to Greece, the Former Yugolsavian Republic of Macedonia, Turkey and even further afield; one is at Damian Gruev 38 (tel 525004), ten minutes' walk west from the city centre, and the other at Knyaginya Mariya Luiza 84 (tel 980 7460), ten minutes north of the centre.
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