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Published: October 1st 2010
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Bulgaria is famed for its countryside. Or so says the Lonely Planet anyway. You have to be suspicious when a travel guide lists the 'countryside' as one of the top 5 features of a place - its almost akin to 'well she's got a great personality'. Nevertheless, we love driving trips so this was a good opportunity to hop in a rental and cruise the highways.
Waypoint number 1 was one of Bulgaria's famed monasteries, Rila Monastery. This is set high in the Pirin Mountains, about 2 hours drive from Sofia. Its an interesting drive, a windy road that takes you through remote villages of fat babushkas and weather-beaten faces. Add to this the occassional donkey cart loaded with head-scarf toting ladies, cigarette-chewing old men and clusters of dusty-faced kids that gawk with excitement at the sight of foreigners. This we imagined was the real Bulgaria - rural and remote, quaint and simple.
Anyway - on to the monastery. This monastery far exceeded our expectation. Now when I think monastery, I think dark, dank and cold. Guys with beards. And robes. And chanting. And possibly those guys who swing those bowls of smoke around. This place had it all
Field of flowers
The bulgarian countryside is filled with these yellow flowers. Very pretty! (except perhaps for the dankness and darkness). The setting itself is pretty enough - a solitary monastery surrounded by trees and brooks and with a pretty backdrop of the Pirin mountains. Its the inside though that gets the photos. The main church here is decorated with a weird paintings. Paintings of hell and torture. Rather graphic ones considering it was a monastery. Apparently the monks did this so that the local peasants had a nice visual reminder of what being naughty could lead to.
Its the inside that really makes an impression though. Because that's where all the chanting and smoke and spookiness is that you would expect from a monastery in the middle of the mountains of Eastern Europe. There are women lighting candles, monks in robes chanting, smoke and incense to the right, coffins with bones of saints to the left. And of course every wall is covered in icons (images of saints - not clickable icons although that would be cool) of long black haired guys looking rather gruff yet saintly.
The main church is surrounded by 3 stories of residences that are used to host widows and orphans - this is the main function
of the monastery. I wouldn't be surprised though if in the future the monks enterprisingly rent out those rooms to tourists. The monastery is amidst such beautiful and tranquil surroundings that I'm sure they could make a healthy profit. Although I guess that may mean those widows and orphans would be back on the street.
Destination two was our end goal for the day - Plovdiv - #2 city in Bulgaria. We decided however to take to long route that would take us through the backroads and the scenic Rhodope mountains. This drive was also incredibly pretty - very reminiscent of the Alpine forests in the Swiss Alps, or the Evergreens in North America/Canada. I'm always amazed at how neat and tidy those christmas tree evergreens look - never a frond out of place. Rhodopi also sports some crystal clear brooks that add to the charm.
However, there isn't much else to see apart from the scenery. And the roads are windy which means its slow going. So by the end of the day, we definitely started getting sick of it. And vowed never to visit another evergreen forest again. Which is rather ironic because I'm actually writing
this blog article while sitting in Whistler, Canada looking right out of the window at a forest of those same trees.
Enroute though we did make some short stops at Devin and Shiropa Luka. Devin is the premier ski destination in Bulgaria, and apparently Bulgaria is making a name for itself on the European Ski circuit. Its also the place where the best water comes from. Now - I'm no somnelieur. Infact I like tap water. And constantly chastise my wife when she
wants to purchase bottled water (given that its all just really tap water with microscropic filth and dust added in). But this water - Devin water - its good! So much so that I exclusively sipped on Devin for the rest of our time in Bulgaria.
Shiropa Luka is a tiny village set on the side of a hill overlooking a river. If this had been the first thing on our stop for the day, we may have been slightly tickled. But given that we had done about 5 hours already in similar scenery, the whole quaintness was subsumed by European-not-another-church syndrom (results from one too many church tours
on any given European holiday). Thirty
Priests welcome their flock
This monastery is so remote ... definitey very devoted of people to make the hike up. minutes gawking at Bulgarians gawking back at us, a few random cows and
cute little bridge was sufficient.
We ended the day at Plovdiv, second largest city in Bulgaria, and known for its quaint old town centre. But that was for tomorrow. What was left for today was to find some great Bulgarian food to garnish a very very long day. And that we did - at a very kitsch Bulgarian restaurant that served a great stew and a great cheese salad.
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