Rocking in Bulgaria

When we last left you, Don and I were in Macedonia and planning to drive to Sofia, the capital of Bulgaria. Intending to spend two nights, we ended up spending four and having such a great time that we were lax with our blogging responsibilities. I’ll try and make up for that now while Don is copying the pictures.

We'll begin with just a few pictures from Skopje, Macedonia--a town we found to be a mix between slightly tacky and classically beautiful.

A view from our apartment window which was on a pedestrian-only street right down from the main square.

The green sign at the top of the building names the beer we liked to drink in Macedonia - UMMMM, Good!

A lion spitting up.... Seriously!

Alexander the Great, Macedonia's first claim to fame, atop the lion-spitting-up fountain....

An early monarch of Macedonia - his name was in Cyrillic script.

We drove into Bulgaria after a three-hour drive over some pretty decent roads—and got stopped by the police doing random checks twice in about half an hour. I think being American and not being kids, they just smiled and left us alone—although the first cop told Don the speed limit was 50 kilometers in the villages—so of course I didn’t nag him about driving fast. (yeah, right....[Don]) 

We got into the city and walked the streets checking out the historical sites on the city map. Here's some of what we saw....

We think it was a socialist statue but probably not... Again, Cyrillic script. Sophia residents tend to get rid of anything (often with jackhammers) that reminds them of the Soviet era.

Doors to St. Alexander Nevski Cathedral, with one of a million icons that took our collective breaths away

A long-shot of St. Alexander Nevski Cathedral, The domes are reportedly plated with gold paid for by the Russians. When we walked in, it was Saturday night and a mass began highlighted by an amazing choir chanting in the choir loft and dozens of Sofians bowing and crossing themselves (backward) most dramatically. We were blown away.

Just one of hundreds of beautiful buildings. We're not quite sure what this is. And this time we cannot blame it on Cyrillic script

We lost an hour because the clocks changed again when we crossed the border into Bulgaria; it was an hour later here which meant that we had another hour of daylight to sightsee.

This time we booked another one-bedroom apartment which turned out to be above a beauty parlor, yoga studio, and spa. One of the features of staying here is free saunas—which we have taken advantage of twice.
 
Although the weather has been sunny and warm most days, Sunday, April 1 gave us a chance to relax. It was windy and raining in the morning—and then it snowed! We walked around the city and made jokes about it being April Fool’s Day. We went to the Ethnographic Museum which had an exhibition on wine-making (Don took some good notes) and met Bulgarian women who were teaching younger women the traditional crafts of tatting and making bobbin lace. We also walked through the sculpture gardens.

Traditional Bulgarian wedding costumes from about 1900.

Traditional American tourist costume circa 2012 on a cold, rainy/snowy day - the model refused to stand in the alcove behind her despite the photographer's imploring her to do so.

 Because we had the car in a secure parking place, we’ve walked all over the city, but we decided to visit another monastery in Rila which is quite famous. It’s the largest monastery in the Baltics, and the architecture is quite distinctive. It was interesting to see this monastery after seeing the one in Ohrid because they both promoted literacy and education.  

A view of the main church. Everything is painted, including the zebra-stripped arches and the American-flag stripped wall above the portico

The south gate leading into the monastery courtyard

A closeup of the painting above the entrance.

Looking up at the ceiling of the porch outside the church proper. Every surface that could be covered with painted decoration was! There are literally thousands of paintings, all more beautiful than the previous one.

It could be a fountain or a baptismal font but is was beautiful. Notice the golden bird perched on the statuary in the middle of the fountain and the bell behind it.

The Rila Monastery courtyard was full of snow, and these guys were loading it into a wheelbarrow and hauling it away. Later, when they got tired of hauling it, they just spread it out across the rest of the courtyard so it would melt in the sun.

Just too amazing not to be included.... Talk about telling a story!

The 120-kilometer drive to the town of Rila was also a great travel experience. The snow the day before was enough to enchant but not enough to cause any road problems. We drove several kilometers on a super highway with snow-covered mountains and lightly dusted trees that sparkled in the sunlight—and then we drove through the mountains on roads that definitely see cars—but if we passed 15 cars in an hour that was a lot. We did pass some guys riding horses and another with a donkey cart loaded with hay, and I could see why that would be the preferred method of transportation in that area!

The Rila Mountain range, south of Sofia, the highest mountains in Bulgaria and the sixth highest mountain range in Europe.

Snow in the mountains - beautiful and fragile. It was gone by the time we left the Monastery,

After such a lovely day, we noticed that the snow had totally melted from the trees on the way back—but the lovely snow-capped mountains retained their bit of the morning’s snow.

Today we went on the Free Sofia Tour which was a two-hour walking tour of the city. We should have done this first, but the weather was not cooperating or we didn’t feel like it, so today was our day. Our guide, Filip, took about 30 people on a tour, and it was obvious that we hit pay dirt. He knew a lot of history, tons of local lore, and had a great sense of humor. One story—a group of terrorists plotted to overthrow the government in 1924. They killed a general, and then planned to blow up everyone in the church at this guy’s funeral—including the King. At precisely 3 p.m. dynamite blew up the church. About 200 people died and 500 were injured; the King was not killed because of a Bulgarian "habit"—he was 15 minutes late!

After the tour, we went to lunch with the tour guide and five other people: a Canadian, a Brit, a Finn, and a couple from Australia. We had a fine lunch and several beers, solved all of the world’s problems, and declared that everyone should travel and expand their knowledge of other people’s cultures. Because it’s the off-season, there are not a lot of tourists, so this is the first chance we’ve had in a month to spend quite a bit of time with other people who are traveling like we are.

We’ve been on the road four weeks yesterday, and the time passes quickly. Our Genny left for Seoul, Korea this morning to teach English for a year. She just landed in San Francisco and is getting on the plane to Seoul right now, so keep her in your prayers. We are going to miss her so much! A shoutout to Eileen and Joe who are in Italy for ten days—we wish you a great trip.

We originally planned to go to Romania, but we have heard some horror stories about their roads and decided to go north into Serbia instead. We plan on driving through Serbia for the next three days and staying in Nis, Belgrade, and Subotica (a town near the Hungarian border). More later.