Hiding in plain sight is one of the best ways to avoid attention. There is a region in Bulgaria that has achieved that, although not quite intentionally. The Danube region is a treasure trove for visitors, yet few travellers venture along the 470-kilometre stretch from Vidin to Silistra that defines the greater part of Bulgaria's border with Romania. This is in sharp contrast to the popularity of the Danube as a tourist destination in Central Europe.
Dr Rob Dixon arrived in Bulgaria in August 2020. Prior to that he served as deputy director for Africa at the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, and as Deputy Head of Mission in Tel Aviv. He holds a PhD in International Relations from the University of Wales Aberystwyth. He is married to Dòra Blazsek-Dixon, and they have one son. Originally from Birmingham, he was born in 1974 and enjoys outdoor sports, travel, history and reading.
"Are all Bulgarians as touchy-feely as you?" The question had never occurred to me, until my friend Jenny asked me a few weeks after we met during our freshman year of college in Saint Paul, Minnesota. This was the first time I thought about personal space explicitly, even though I'd probably experienced it on a sensory level throughout my whole life. I was coming from a high school in Kuwait, which, although American in name, spirit, and language of instruction, was actually a hard-to-disentangle jumble of cultures, customs, greeting habits, and levels of touchiness.