Category Archives: Tourism

September 2012–Bulgarian mountains

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September was the time when we decided to take a small vacation to visit Bulgaria for two weeks. This is also when my brother came back from USA with his daughter and Moni came from Cyprus with his girlfriend. So why not make a small mountain trip. The choice was Mazalat hut – a well known rest-place for us. So we took my father, Dido and all of us went for three days in Stara planina.

Three very nice days with mostly rest, just a tight bit of hikes around and many beers. Well spent wlEmoticon smile September 2012–Bulgarian mountains

IMG 3569 September 2012–Bulgarian mountains

Above is one picture. Clicking on it links to the full Picasa album with more wlEmoticon smile September 2012–Bulgarian mountains

Musala–3-4 July

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Well, another mountain time, another short mountain story. For a couple of weeks before I left my job we’ve been planning a visit to the mountains. This time it should be Rila, why not. And especially Musala. Unfortunately the weather forecast was not with us. Since the beginning of the week it has been like that: “Since Sunday the weather will be great”, “Saturday and Sunday there will be thunderstorms over the mountains”…. Well, who wouldn’t have started wlEmoticon smile Musala–3 4 July Risky but…

And we started early Sunday morning, at 3 AM. Me, Mü and Dido. Three friends and one car. 5 something hours later we were at Borovets. Fog, drizzling, nasty weather. Considering rain has been with us for all our trip until now… we started thinking: Do we really want to go in the mud of the Musala pathway. I got the idea of asking the lift people how the weather was ‘up there’. They told that it’s cold, but it’s clear, however very unstable. So…. why not – pay 10 leva each for a ski-lift ticket and be driven quickly up. This saved us 3 hours of muddy uphill. When we dropped and Yastrebets (2369 m), the weather was like that:

IMG 2530 thumb Musala–3 4 July

The first 30-40 minutes until Musala hut were great – no rain, almost no wind. Just before the hut it started raining very little. We stopped for some rest, some warm soup. And decided to continue, even though the rain continued. Rain, fog, wind, for the next 1 1/2 hours. Just before we got to the “Ledeno ezero” shelter (or hut now) it stopped raining and the weather cleared a little bit.

IMG 4479 thumb Musala–3 4 July

The hut was completely empty, excluding the host and the woman that helps her. The many tourists and groups we met already were somewhere down the mountain. Understandable – after all the ski-lift doesn’t work on Monday and Tuesday, and they didn’t want to go all the way down Musala pathway (steep downhill). It was very cold, even for Musala, even for beginning of July. This year the “summer” up there is coming a little bit late. So we got a very small room (usually used for special guests only wlEmoticon smile Musala–3 4 July ) with a heater. The bad news is that it’s with two beds only, but we’ll make it somehow. The rest of the day was pretty much eat, sleep a bit, eat some more, sleep some more. And this until 6 AM the other day. Oh, great sun, sneaking from the small window of our room.

I had to jump and try to wake the others – of course, we have so many things ahead of us for the day. But our joy didn’t go for longer – clouds, fog, chill wind again got around the high mountain.

Still, it was doable. And we started up. Just to make it 5 minutes before Musala peak. A steep, frozen uphill with a lot of snow still remaining. This is where me and Mü headed down and Dido stormed up the summit. When we got down I called him – he made it safe, took a pic and is heading down now.

IMG 4493 thumb Musala–3 4 July

IMG 4492 thumb Musala–3 4 July

Some rest, packing quickly and we had to head down to Borovets. Our car was waiting there for us.

But not before one last picture with the shelter as background:

IMG 4496 thumb Musala–3 4 July

And we got to the resort just in time for a perfect weather down the mountain – no fog, no rain, just great. Unfortunately our muscles were already sore, so…. enough mountain trip, instead we’ll transfer that to our ‘auto-tourism’, in which we are already so good…. but for this – later.

22-24 May, 2011–Romania mud volcanoes, Brasov, Bran

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For one more time we decided to go to Romania for a couple of days. Combining the 4 days we had as holidays in Bulgaria with some auto tourism in our north neighbor country.

The plan was the following – Bran, Brasov, Sinaia. Three great cities in the outskirts of Bucegi mountains (part of the Carpathians).

Well… yeah, kind of. This time I wanted to add something that a CouchSurfing guest of ours recommended 10 months ago – the Berca mud volcanoes.

It wasn’t exactly on our way, but who cares. I was curious to see exactly what ‘volcano-ish’ they had. And I was impressed. I was expecting something small. And this wasn’t small – a big field, surrounded by hills. A hill of grey clay with some small geysers. Not exactly like big ones – some were like boiling water with big bubbles, others looked like almost silent piles of poo, which gave strange sound from time to time. wlEmoticon smile 22 24 May, 2011–Romania mud volcanoes, Brasov, Bran An amazing view.

IMG 1779 thumb 22 24 May, 2011–Romania mud volcanoes, Brasov, Bran

We read that the form from a 3km deep gas which raises through layers of clay and water, thus erupting mud on the surface. They clay then dries and forms cones around the ground wlEmoticon smile 22 24 May, 2011–Romania mud volcanoes, Brasov, Bran

Interesting.

IMG 1833 thumb 22 24 May, 2011–Romania mud volcanoes, Brasov, Bran

Of course I couldn’t resist and play around with the clay…  who would. I brought the inner child then, allowing it to mess a little bit with it.

IMG 1808 thumb 22 24 May, 2011–Romania mud volcanoes, Brasov, Bran

Second stop had to be Bran, the so called ‘Dracula’ village, where the castle was built. Our GPS wanted us to go back through Ploiesti, but no-no…. we’d rather make a few more kilometers than get back. It was totally worth it. Riding through picturesque mountain roads, beautiful landscapes, a big dam, some pouring rain, which stopped most of the Romanian cars for a rest until it cleared. 140 km adventure in the mountains – wonderful.

Then to the Bran castle. A cute, small castle on a rock. It shouldn’t be called Dracula, really. I think Vlad Tepes didn’t even live there… whatever. Nowadays it’s something like a historical museum with a short rope-guided tour around some of the rooms. Interesting enough. The small village beneath the castle was free to visit the last time we went there – now it had additional entry fee…. that’s a progress.

IMG 1892 thumb 22 24 May, 2011–Romania mud volcanoes, Brasov, Bran

Of course a visit to the nearby market and buying some traditional smoked cheese is a must.

IMG 1881 thumb 22 24 May, 2011–Romania mud volcanoes, Brasov, Bran

This time we decided to stay at the highest point of Bran. I’m not going to skip the name here, because these people deserve it – Vila Bran. A great complex of 10 houses, big restaurant, plenty of activities to do (wall climbing, archery, tennis, ping-pong, fitness, horse riding, etc) – all the activities free. And the price was reasonable, we like it there.

The next morning – to Brasov. A couple of times I’m only passing through this small city, but this time no…. it was time to see it. A beautiful city with western architecture (as I learn, German)… it even has a German name – Kronstadt. So we were there extremely early – not even at 10 as you can see from the sun-clock of the German church. Great.

IMG 1911 thumb 22 24 May, 2011–Romania mud volcanoes, Brasov, Bran

You got to like Brasov from the moment you see it. Nearby mountains, architecture, oh man… even the eateries there. We found a bakery which was called ‘The German bakery’, I think. The best pie I’ve tried so far.

IMG 1924 thumb 22 24 May, 2011–Romania mud volcanoes, Brasov, Bran

Of course we didn’t miss to visit the gothic cathedral in Brasov – the Black church. The biggest gothic cathedral from Vienna to Istanbul, as they say.

IMG 1988 thumb 22 24 May, 2011–Romania mud volcanoes, Brasov, Bran

One major drawback – sleeping in Brasov. C’mon people, really. With the presence of big resort cities nearby, the price of a hostel, hotel, etc. shouldn’t be this high. After a couple of tries we decided that it’s not that much worth it. And went to Sinaia. We were right – for the lowest price we got in Brasov, we got some luxurious apartments in Sinaia. And we could combine it with a walk in the nearby park.

IMG 2003 thumb 22 24 May, 2011–Romania mud volcanoes, Brasov, Bran

Do you even have to ask… I saw the lions wlEmoticon smile 22 24 May, 2011–Romania mud volcanoes, Brasov, Bran

IMG 2008 thumb 22 24 May, 2011–Romania mud volcanoes, Brasov, Bran

The final morning before we headed to Ruse rewarded us with a visit to the Peles castle. We didn’t expect to have so much luck – we read that it’s open from 11:00 AM (Tuesday) this day, which was already a little bit too late for us. So we decided we go, see it again, and return. Instead, we stumbled on a group of German tourists which had nothing against us, visiting the castle with them (it was opened 1 1/2 hours before that for them). So…. luck was with us.

IMG 2062 thumb 22 24 May, 2011–Romania mud volcanoes, Brasov, Bran

One final picture of the whole group wlEmoticon smile 22 24 May, 2011–Romania mud volcanoes, Brasov, Bran

IMG 2042 thumb 22 24 May, 2011–Romania mud volcanoes, Brasov, Bran

The whole gallery can be seen in my Picasa Web Albums ~HERE~

8 April, 2011 – Shumen, Razgrad, Sveshtari

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The last day of our trip started early morning in Shumen – the city of Shumensko, one of the best Bulgarian beers. After a quick breakfast in the hotel we started to the Shumen fortress.

IMG 4943 thumb 8 April, 2011 Shumen, Razgrad, Sveshtari

The fortress is just above the city, on top of the Shumen plateu. We found many people already inside there, working on renovation of the site – one of them told us about an opening on the 30th of April, with scenes from Medieval ages, light show and stuff like that. Though we couldn’t see it.
The small museum of the fortress shows found treasures and tools from 12th century B.C. on.  The first settlers there were the thracians. About year 15 A.D. the romans captured the lands south of Danube and the fortress became theirs. After the creation of the Bulgarian kingdom, the Shumen fortress was in the boundaries of the kingdom.

Following this one was Razgrad. The museum Abritus (the name of the Roman village from 2-4th century A.D.) was showing a lot of interesting relics – some from the roman village of Abritus, some Thracian even from the Sveshtari tomb, and of course later ones from Bulgarian times.

The last and one of the most impressive in our improvised tourist trip around Bulgaria was the Sveshtari tomb. It’s again an object from the UNESCO World Heritage in Bulgaria. It was discovered in 1982. The architecture of the tomb is considered to be unique, unlike the other one in Kazanlak, this one contained a lot of statues of women, carved in the walls (the other had plenty of paintings).

7 April, 2011–Varna and Madara

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Thursday morning in Nesebar welcomed us with no water in the whole old city. This meant no morning shower, probably no breakfast with coffee anywhere.

But Nesebar still offered us something, I haven’t seen in two years – sunrise over the sea. I woke up Muh, so this time she wouldn’t miss it like last time at Eho hut.

At around 9 in the morning we were already on the road.

IMG 9741 thumb 7 April, 2011–Varna and Madara

So we were in Varna pretty early in the morning, but that gave us the opportunity to walk a bit more around – we visited the Historical museum (with plenty of great history gathered in it, even though there were collections, which were not shown right now due to restoration), after that we got a great walk around the Sea garden. And then, of course a walk on the beach.

IMG 4897 thumb 7 April, 2011–Varna and Madara

IMG 4908 thumb 7 April, 2011–Varna and Madara

After Varna we decided to skip some of the objects for the day (like Pobiti kamani – Побити камъни). So we headed directly to Madara and the Madara rider – the national symbol of Bulgaria, and another UNESCO site. They say the rider in the rocks dates back to somewhere in the 8th century. It’s about 20 m above the ground and is I think in full size – a man on a horse, thrusting a spear in a lion, and around him a dog and an eagle. Some connect this to the thracians, some to the proto-bulgarians. I don’t really know, to be honest – but still, this is an impressive piece of art for that time.

IMG 4914 thumb 7 April, 2011–Varna and Madara

IMG 4921 thumb 7 April, 2011–Varna and Madara

We finished our day in the nice city of Shumen, where we slept in a hotel, which dated more than 150 years – the house in revival times belonged to a teacher from Shumen.

6 April, 2011 – Sozopol, Nesebar

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6th of April was entirely seaside day. With the idea of visiting two cities with ancient history – Sozopol and Nesebar.

Sozopol (Созопол) which lies about 20-30 km south of Burgas is a nice city, situated on a peninsula just where Strandzha mountain starts. The ancient name of Sozopol was Apolonia Pontika. It’s the oldest city on the Bulgarian seaside – about 3-4 millennium B.C. The old city of Sozopol has many houses from 18-19th century saved, making it a beautiful sight, combined with seaside.

IMG 9613 thumb 6 April, 2011 Sozopol, Nesebar

IMG 4840 thumb 6 April, 2011 Sozopol, Nesebar

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5 april, 2011–Dyavolsko gyrlo, Chudnite mostove, Bachkovo monastery, Asenova fortress

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Our fourth day started with a great home made breakfast in Triibrie hotel – mekitsi (Bulgarian fried pastry dish) with cheese, jam and great Rodopi tea (Mursalski). Can you wish for something better?

After that it was time for what we couldn’t visit the day before – the Devil’s throat cave. Legends say that here Orpheus dropped to the kingdom of the death to save his beloved Eurydice. Outside it looks like nothing special, until you go in – there are I think about 15 waterfalls, the biggest of which is 42 meters. The roar of them is scary. You have to climb to get out of the cave, to the natural entrance of it, where the water goes inside. Many people have been trying to throw objects in it, even live animals in ancient times – none of which have been found. Near the entrance there’s a memorial plate to the two divers, which entered the cave to search for its exit in the 70s – again, they did not exit.

IMG 0581 thumb 5 april, 2011–Dyavolsko gyrlo, Chudnite mostove, Bachkovo monastery, Asenova fortress

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4 april, 2011 – Rojen monastery, Kovachevica, Trigrad gorge

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Monday morning in Melnik. It’s so good to not have to go to work. Instead me and Mü are walking around Melnik a little bit more while we wait for the breakfast room to open. This made us witnesses of a car, which somehow managed to cross an extremely narrow bridge. Funny people from Melnik.

IMG 9518 thumb 4 april, 2011 Rojen monastery, Kovachevica, Trigrad gorge

After a nice breakfast we were ready to go to the Rojen monastery. Once again. A great place. This one is much better than the Rilski monastery to go to. If you are not a regular tourist and need something a little bit different for your trip – go there. The views to the mountains are stunning

IMG 0782 thumb 4 april, 2011 Rojen monastery, Kovachevica, Trigrad gorge

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3 April, 2011–Boyana church, Rilski monastery, Rupite, Melnik

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Let’s see what happened on the second day of our trip around Bulgaria

Sunday, early morning in Dragalevtsi, Sofia. Only one crazy person is walking around, looking at the houses, going to a 24/7 store to buy a newspaper and Pepsi. Yeah, that’s me – I like to wake up in the mornings wlEmoticon smile 3 April, 2011–Boyana church, Rilski monastery, Rupite, Melnik

A little bit after that the group is ready and we all go to Boyana church (Боянска църква) – one of the Bulgarian UNESCO World Heritage objects. The orthodox church is famous for the paintings (frescos or whatever they are called) from 13th century – absolutely preserved. A bad fact is that you can only enter for 10 minutes and no more than 8 people at a time – after all it’s relatively small church. The park around the church, however is absolutely great. Many trees, paths, some preserved gravestones. Next to the church is the grave of Queen Eleonora – the wife of the Bulgarian king Ferdinand I.

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