Travel the Clean, Green Way in Sofia, Take the Trolley

A number 11 Trolley Bus on Tsarigradsko Chaussée

I’m a bit behind now because I’ve been getting ready for a wedding.

No, it’s not my wedding I’m married already - just celebrated our 15th anniversary a couple of weeks ago.

I’ve been asked to be the Best Man and my wife is going to be Matron of Honour.

This is quite a complicated business here in Bulgaria and I’ll tell you more about it later.

Still one thing I had to do was to go and buy some presents and because this would mean carrying something I decided to go on public transport.

Luckily a trolleybus passes quite near my place and goes almost to the shop where I decided to buy the presents - at Selima Jo - a gift and nic nac shop on Sofia’s poshest street, Vitosha Boulevard.

In  one or two future posts I’ll fill you in  on the wedding system here but this is really finishing looking at public transport, buses, trams and now trolleybuses.

Now as far as trolleybuses are concerned, it’s strange to me that in many of the cities that I’ve lived in, they have disappeared.

I remember when I was younger I used to live in different places with trolleybuses and they’ve gone.

But it’s really quite interesting to see that there are certain very advantageous points about trolleybuses.

One of the most important things to think about in these days when we worry about air-quality, pollution and the ever rising cost of oil products is that they don’t use or at least they don’t directly use oil because they work from a central electricity supply, which can of course be powered in many different ways.

In some countries, they have even managed to power the trolleybuses from wind turbines.

Still, it means that in Sofia the trolleybuses, do not contribute much to the pollution in the air and they don’t use diesel. This means that they are very, very quiet and very, very clean.

Rather like the trams, trollybuses have a fixed route.

They have to follow their overhead cables - which some people find unsightly  - which are attached to the trolley poles which convey the power to the engine - here people call the poles “braces”.

Still. it’s quite interesting that trolleys are a little bit different in that they can actually move quite wide distances sideways and this means that they can come into the kerb and they can stop at the same places at the buses.

So quite often, you’ll have a bus stop, and a trolley stop together.

Bus and trolley stop on on Tsarigradsko Chaussée

Anyway I really like travelling on trolleys as I say, they tend to be very quiet, they run on rubber tyres, and they are ecologically very friendly.

So, I believe that for many cities an integrated transport system should include a trolleybuses.  And indeed that is the case in Sofia and many other cities.

Now my trip was successful, and I was able to buy some presents.

So I suppose in the next couple of posts I’ll be looking perhaps to see about some of the points about weddings in Bulgaria and how they vary here from other places I’ve been to.

I'm John Rocha, Blog Master of Bulgarian Vistas.

I like to write from experience about living in Bulgaria, holidays in Bulgaria, Bulgarian food,

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All the best John