An Amazing Scene Inside a Crumbling Monument

This clip shares the most unforgettable experience I've had in two months of travel. Traveling through countries that spent 45 years in what locals here call "the Soviet club," it's fascinating to see how an ideology that preached equality for all built gigantic monuments that impoverished the very workers for whom the ideology was designed to serve. That's the case on a mountaintop in Bulgaria where we visited a conference center built for the 100th anniversary of the founding of what became the Bulgarian Communist Party. In this clip, we marvel at its immensity and then squeeze through a tiny hole in the barrier to discover what's inside.

This is Day 52 of my 100 Days in Europe series. As I research my guidebooks and make new TV shows, I'm reporting on my experiences and lessons learned in Portugal, Spain, Italy, France, Bulgaria, Romania, and beyond. Find more at blog.ricksteves.com.