Bulgaria

Stob's Pyramids, a natural formation caused by erosion outside of Sofia

Rila Monastery - amazing paintings covering the church

Rila Monastery

This a private residence and he had tons of old cars like Trebants and Beetles and they were on the roof!

Plovdiv and the Roman amphitheater

Shipka Pass - a monument to the Russian soldiers that helped Bulgaria defeat the Ottoman Empire and kick the Turks out of Bulgaria after 500 yrs.  The views from this were amazing!!

view from Shipka Pass

Shipka Pass

We also toured an ethnographic museum that was incredible.  There were shops with artisans crafting and this is a bagpipe shop.  Mike bought the pipes hanging in the picture!  Very cool! 

From Istanbul, we took an overnight train to Sofia, Bulgaria. Iskra, our tour planner, met us at the train station.  She was wonderful and so were all of our guides and our driver, Luybo (pronounced Lubo).  He was apparently an actor on vacation for the summer and she arranged for him to drive us.  He didn't speak very much English, but we had a great time with him!  We were in Bulgaria for 6 days and the tour was definitely a crash course on Bulgaria history.  We traveled to Sofia, Plovdiv, Lovech, and Veliko Tarnovo and saw some amazing things at every place.  Best things:

• Sofia - Boyana Church (I know that I always say this, but this is seriously some of the most amazing art I have ever seen) We couldn't take pictures, but the church is covered in frescos dating back 200 yrs before the Renaissance.  They are stunning and realistic and gorgeous.  We were only allowed in for 10 minutes and the timekeeper just couldn't help himself and started pulling Mike and me around to show us and tell us everything.  He was so excited that it was hard not to get caught up in the magic of the place.  I think that he thought that our guide, Rumi, was going too slow!
• Plovdiv - Probably the Roman amphitheater in the center of town...what?  Yep, a Roman amphitheater.  Not that it is surprising to see Roman ruins, but it is still incredible how many there are and where they turn up.  They didn't even know it was there until they started excavating for a subway tunnel a few years ago.  And, now they have events there.  Oh, and also whiling the afternoon away at several cafe/bars.  It was so hot, there wasn't much else to do after our tour.  Good times.
• Lovech - small town, probably Danni, our guide, was the best thing.  She was 20? and full of attitude.  She was fun and we had lunch with her and Luybo at the hotel her family owns in town.
• Veliko Tarnovo - cool town with many reminders of communist Bulgaria.  And, an incredible fortress on a hill overlooking the town.  The ruins were huge.  There is a restored church there with murals that were repainted in the 1980's.  Because it was still communist, the govt wouldn't allow the works to be specifically religious.  As a result, the church is not sanctioned and is only considered a museum.  Our guide, Ruman, said that the murals scare the tourists.  They were amazing!  I loved it, but I can see how they would be a bit off-putting.  There is a lightshow at the fortress every night and Ruman happened to be the manager of the show, so we had seats in the special viewing building for the show.  It was so dramatic and awesome!  And, on an island in town, there is an incredible equestrian monument dedicated to the Asen dynasty, three brothers and a nephew who 'founded' Bulgaria.

I should probably spread this out a bit, instead of trying to cram it all into one post!  That's a recap of  Bulgaria.  I'm going to put pictures from Veliko Tarnova in the next post.