Bulgaria Trip Part III: The Black Sea

From Plovdiv we got back on the main road and drove 2,5 hours out to yet another geographic phenomenom I never expected to have the reason or opportunity to visit: the Black Sea.

We stayed in a little ancient town of Sozopol, just south of the main resort city of Burgas on a small peninsula. Sozopol's harbor has been used since the Bronze Age and they've found anchors in the port dating back to 2nd millennium B.C. The area is mostly a playground for Bulgarians and vacationing Russians. Only ran across one person who spoke German. People were quite surprised to learn that Americans would come here.

Overall the beaches were beautiful and the tides are manageable for kids. Everything is quite cheap. There is still evidence of the Communist times everywhere in the form of ugly and boxey apartment blocks in the big coastal resort towns. On the outskirts of the resort centers are abandoned building projects, some rusted old cars and the occasional shepherd grazing his goat herd on the hillside. So a bit colorful but as with everything else, that is the stuff that spices up the experience.

This is not one of those 2nd millennium anchors. Probably from the Russian Black Sea fleet as there was a naval base just up the coast from Sozopol.

Starting a great life-long tradition: ordering your drink at the beach bar! (choco milkshakes in this case)

Black Sea beaches look like beaches anywhere else really, except that you are surrounded on all sides by the Russian language. 13 Lev (6 Euro) to rent an anchored umbrella and couple chaises for the day. 

Excavation of Sozopo's ancient city wall across the mouth of the peninsula.

Rusted street marker on a Revivalist house in the Old Town.

Jasper was done with pictures and sat this one out.

Then we passed a little studio with some traditional costumes and convinced the kids to pose for some pics. Comic gold.

Putting the youngsters to good use.

"Watch for cars?"

The beach front road where all the commerce takes place. Lots of pigs and chickens turning on rotisseries, shooting gallery games and tattoo stands.

Some sort of snow-mobile video game that was suddenly of extreme importance.

For our last night (which we had not reserved) we splurged and spent 150 Euro at the Villa Bizantium, a Greek palace-themed wonderland of luxury: spa access, huge suite with kitchen, private sea beach, negative-edge pool, sumptious breakfast buffet and on-site garage parking. (versus the dusty, sun-baked lot across the busy road we had at the last place)

300 Meters out and the sea only comes up to your waist: stress-free for parents who can monitor swimming kids over the rim of their Moscow Mules and beach novels.

Crab catching. 

After putting too much soap into the jet tub. Whirlpools are a wonderful invention.

On Wednesday we drove back across the country (5 hours with a lunch stop) in one go. Lots of fields of sunflowers. 

Happy Bulgaria!!! (this is actually a promotion for the Happy Bar & Grill, a TGIFriday's-esque restaurant chain).

Sunlight hitting the lakes of Brandenburg on our return to Berlin.

Bulgaria Trip Part II: Rila Monastery

Rila Monastery and Plovdiv

Leaving Sapareva Banya, we heading further south into the Rila Mountains to the mind-blowing UNESCO World Heritage site Rila Monastery. Some form of religious practice has persisted on this site since 976, when St Rilski showed up and established it in the mountain valley away from the temptations of the world. Other Bulgarian Orthodox monasteries were also cited in mountainous locations for this reason.

Later on when the Ottomans took over Bulgaria, the inaccessibility of the monasteries enabled Bulgarian nationalist ideas to survive. After 400 years when the Turks were expelled from Bulgaria (in 1880) the Bulgarian national revival was greatly assisted by these links to the history of the original Bulgarian kingdoms from the early periods before 1200 AD.

We arrived and filled out an application as Religious Pilgrims in order to spend the night in the Monastery quarters reserved for those on a pilgrimage. We were not actually on a religious pilgrimage, but this did not come up when I was filling the form out. The Orthodox monk had a big scraggly beard and was sufficiently mysterious about everything.

Frescoes on the ceiling of the main portico of Rila Monastery. Buildings in background are the monk's quarters, rooms for the religious pilgrims and operations offices.

Our first day we hiked down along the river to a small church and Ossuary near the main monastery. Cool paintings on a building from 1700's. It may not surprise that generations of monks are buried here. 

Lots of hiking around the monastery, but we had some problems lining up destination words with the trail names.

Five km up the valley is a short hike to the cave where St Rilski spent his first years in the area while getting ready to found the monastery. 

There's no food served at Rila Monastery, so a couple restaurants have jumped in to fill the gap. This is a bacon wrapped fish. With lemon!

Staying overnight at a monastery lets you have the place to yourself, which for Rila is really quite something. The place sees around a million visitors a year. At night, the only thing you hear is the river.

Little fountains spaced around the central courtyard all have ladles hanging next to them by little chains for those needing to quench their spiritual and physical thirst.

Central passage in front of the chapel.

Landslide on the main road.

From Rila we drove down out of the mountains to the main highway across the country and a few hours later pitched up in Plovdiv, one of Europe's oldest cities. Greek/Roman and earlier civilizations have foundations all over town.

Steps of the original colesseum discovered in 1972. Active mosque (from Turkish period) in background.

Central Post Office, a hulking Soviet-built structure whose roof is sagging inside. Most of the building is unused and fenced off, takes too much money to do anything with it.

Say what you will about the Soviets, but they ensured lots of gigantic and beautiful public parks for their citizens.

Then there is this aspect of Bulgaria, which in certain places still is rough around the edges.

The obligatory walk through the Old Town. The kids are starting to hate this term, since it means lots of stopping to read things and no possibility of playing soccer.

Good examples of Bulgarian Revivalist architecture from the late 1800's. After they pushed out the Turks, the country went on a building spree. The construction features outside wooden buttressing and overhangs.

Bulgaria Trip Part I: Rila Mountains

Bulgaria Summer Trip: Part I

Acting somewhat on impulse, we identified Bulgaria as one of those "formerly forbidden, now open and available, and therefore interesting" places. Jay's solo work trip down here in May 18 confirmed it so we took the show on the road to check out this former Soviet-dominated republic.

First stop was in the Rila Mountains south of the capital of Sofia where we lucked into a beautiful day for an outstanding hike around a series of seven alpine lakes. A route about 6 miles in length, the kids managed it without problems. Well mostly. We were caught in a sudden rainstorm near the top of the hike, but pushed onward to bag the seventh lake, even though this meant leaving Jasper behind to hide under a rock in his t-shirt and shorts (he was also freaked out by the thunder). Cody followed along but kept muttering, exasperated, to himself "What the heck, parents can't just leave behind their kids!"

In the end everyone survived, there was no hypothermia, and we enjoyed one of the scenic highlights of the country. It was so amazing to have a big hike like this, since there are no mountains like this near Berlin of course. So the trip was off to a great start.

Chairlift to the ridgeline start of the hike.

Adding to the hiking cairns near the top of the ridgeline. Beautiful flat meadow stretched out everywhere beyond.

The meadows up here were soft, expansive, and filled with wildflowers.

At some point we starting documenting the lakes by holding up fingers to correspond to which lake number we stood at.

Cody's red sweatpants, which should have been retired awhile ago, have brushed rocks, street cobbles and jungle gyms all over this continent.

Jay resurrected his LL Bean 1990-issue Anorak for this trip. It worked on me as a college student travelling thru Europe then, and it still works now! And in TEAL.

Downtown Sapareva Banya, sulfur-smelling hot springs in the downtown park. Sulphur eats down the concrete so they have to rebuild the fountain every few years.

Lots of projects get started here that never get finished. This looks like a big hotel complex just off the central park which now serves as a grazing compound for some local horses.

Bulgarian script is Cyrillic, similar to Russian. It has 30 characters and was developed around 1000 AD. It is deliciously foreign-looking and mysterious!