The next day we brunched with friends and then the girls went off to shop while the boys (including a friend of a friend visiting from Denmark) went off to sightsee and watch the Olympics.

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Later that night, we met up with some more friends and had dinner at a restaurant that featured folk music and dancing. There was a funky instrument that looked like a bagpipe but sounded better (sorry Scotland) made out of the skin (stomach? outer skin?) of a kid goat.
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The dancers were awesome and they dragged Steve up front to jump and balance on a jug, attempting to emulate one of their more complicated dances.
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They served us flaming kebobs.
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When it was dark, and the music and dancing had gone on for quite a while, we went to the restaurant's courtyard where they raked out a bed of hot coals (you can't see them glowing, but they were) and one of the musicians walked across them several times barefoot while holding up (venerating?) an icon.
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One of the coolest things about this night is that one of T's friends married a Frenchman, so she, her sister, and her husband all spoke French in addition to Bulgarian. I was able to converse with them without relying on T for simultaneous translation, so the conversations were fast and wild in three languages... the rakia helping all of us forget whom we should be addressing in which... much fun and many laughs. This night was the first of three times we heard a strange remark that was definitely intended as a compliment: "You don't seem American."

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Michelle, it looks like you were having a wonderful
time. I'm really forward to visiting some of those special
places as you share your experiences with us.

You've let your hair grow out!

Another fun day (manicure, pedicure, tour of a friend's business, group lunch), and another home cooked meal with T's parents. (Some kind of braised pork dish with cabbage). We got to give our friend's wife gifts for the son she's expecting soon.

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The next morning, we met Vesko, our tour guide and driver. He was referred by a friend. We thought it would be a simple business arrangement, and frankly we were a little unsure, but we left considering him a friend. He spoke Bulgarian and Italian fluently, and was conversant in Russian. We amused one another by exchanging words in random other languages.

We had no idea what our trip would entail, but I told him I'd be interested in seeing gardens and old cemetaries, if at all possible. He ignored the latter request, which may have meant it was inappropriate. As for the former, Bulgaria doesn't have any botanical gardens, per se, so he took us to his family's home in Vladaya to see his garden.

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He asked me to pick some tomatoes, and he picked some other veggies for our trip. We admired his grape vines and he told us he made his own wine and rakia. He showed us his still, and then tasted several batches for quality and brought some wine and pear rakia along for the trip.

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Our next stop was in the Rila mountains to the cave where St. Ivan of Rila lived seven years as a hermit. Religious pilgrims were making the hike up the hill to see where he slept.
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At the top of this small cave, there is a narrow opening. It is said that only those without too much sin can pass through. Amazingly, all of us were able to make it through without too much trouble. Well, Steve had a little trouble. He said it was because he's so tall, and we were too polite to reply. ;o) Here's Vesko helping an 80 year old woman through the opening.
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When she got out, she proclaimed that she had passed through the hole on the night before her wedding day when she was 19, and now, thanks to God, was able to do so again as an 80 year old woman.

When we got to the top of the hill, Vesko pulled some orange heirloom tomatoes out of his backpack, shared them with everyone (including other pilgrims), and we all enjoyed the view.

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At the top there's a wall into which people tuck wishes and prayers.
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I made a wish, and later wished the same thing on a shooting star I saw.

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When we came down from the top, we found a river to cool our feet in:

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T & I needed bathrooms, and Vesko asked a couple who were out in their yard if there were any nearby. They ended up inviting us inside for Turkish coffee and tea from herbs the woman had gathered from the mountainside.

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The woman was busy making compote from the mountain berries she'd also gathered.
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Remember when I used to complain that my range had an electric cook top instead of gas and it was inconvenient so we bought a new one? I am an idiot.

Our host was a former merchant marine, turned logger. He spoke a bit of English. Our hostess did not, but T translated, and Vesko shared some of his homemade wine with them. He and they exchanged numbers, and our host wished Steve and I a happy life and many children.

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Many children. She don't know you very well, do she? Keep it coming gal!

All I can say is WOW!! Thanks so much for sharing your pictures and experiences. May we please have more?

Feel like Imyself have been on part of your trip, please do keep going, this is wonderful!

LOL, Robin! That was actually a small hiccup, because I replied to his wish "Thank you for your kindness, of course with us, we're happy because we don't have many children." He looked at me perplexed. My friend paused and said: "I cannot translate this. These words make no sense to a Bulgarian. He will never understand it as you mean it."

I laughed, thanked him again, wished them a long and happy life and chalked it up as a cultural lesson learned.

Later that day, we visited the Rila Monestary.

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Here's Steve and I in the monks' kitchen...

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...and looking up at centuries of soot in the chimney

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There were thousands of paintings like this one:

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When we left the complex, we walked to a nearby stream so Vesko could show us the centuries-old method of washing bulky items like rugs. A mountain stream is diverted to a wooden-slat basket, and items are stirred with a stick:

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Later, we stopped at a roadside bar (near Stara Kresna?) and ate kebabche and kufte and drank Pirinsko beer, which is named for the Pirin mountains, which we were about to enter.

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A wasp flew in my beer bottle, and both Steve and Vesko took it away from me in an attempt to get it out. I ended up with foamy remnants of beer and a wasp that turned out to be less dead (as we had thought) than drunk. We played with the drunken wasp for a while, and then laughed as it flew crookedly away...

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Feel like you've read a lot? We're not even finished with the first of our 4+ days with Vesko! He flawlessly planned all our activities and we seemlessly went from one adventure to the next. Along the way he would buy fruit from any pensioners he saw selling any (the average pension in Bulgaria is about $125 US/mo, and their prices didn't seem appreciably lower) and give us the fruit as a gift. The streets were littered with stray animals, but he made it a point to share food with cats, and greet the dogs. We witnessed a million tiny kindnesses, and his spirit greatly contributed to our enjoyment on the trip...

Bulgarians love their folk music. When we were in people's homes, they almost always had the folk music channel on their TVs as ambiance. This channel has a web site, so you can see some of the programming by going to www.folklor-tv.bg, clicking on "BXOD" at the bottom center of the screen and then clicking on any of those pictures on the right.

Additionally, many Bulgarian radio stations play Chalga, which was described to us as Bulgarian hip-hop. I did not hear the resemblance, but it was explained the comparison was more thematic than auditory. The older Bulgarians criticize Chalga for many of the same reasons older Americans criticize hip-hop.

After the road side bar (with interesting toilets),
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we went to Melnik. This is Bulgaria's smallest city, and the EU has designated it as an important historic site, so there are several badly-translated banners proclaiming it's importance and restoration.

To get to our hotel, our guide drove his Opal across a river. He also could have driven across a very narrow bridge the Romans built, and later we met a friendly man impaired by a severe brain injury who had become so by falling off while attempting to drive over.
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Just outside our hotel, there were chickens (and a rooster with great lungs), donkeys (again with the lungs) and pigs.

Here, T and I posed with the statue of Yane Sandanski, an important Bulgarian patriot "under the Turkish yolk." (This is how Bulgarians refer to the time when they were part of the Ottoman Empire.) It became a joke that I had the hots for Yane, so the night would be filled with proclamations of that love.

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I am not sure why T and I chose to wear high heels, but we did. The city is built on a hill side with a channel in the center to handle the floodwaters in the spring. The stone roads were originally built by the Romans. This building is now a hotel, but it used to be a Turkish prison.

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Here's part of the narrow path to the very top of the hill... multiply this by 20 and understand that it is very steep...

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Here's the daytime view from the top:

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While at the top, we went to the cellar of a winery that had operated longer than anyone knew... for the past 300 years, it had been in the same family. Its wines are young and red, and only available in this region. I'm glad I tasted it, but my heart is not broken by its lack of wide distribution.

The winemaker himself (red shirt on left below) was quite a character. Along our journey, I did my very best to speak as much Bulgarian as I could. (In spite of the fact that my natural tendency was to do so with a Russian accent because I pronounced too many vowels with "Y's" in front of them... my friend said I sounded like a mewing cat.) Anyway, there are two ways of saying "thank you" in Bulgarian. The casual friendly way is "Merci" (yes, borrowed from the French). The other, and more formal way is "blagodarya." I emulated T & Vesko and mostly stuck with "merci" which set off the wine maker, who had an abundance of Bulgarian pride.

He went off on a friendly, but serious rant, which was only subsided when I said thank you correctly. He then proceeded to talk about himself, his family, his wines, and his country quite animatedly for the better part of an hour while we sipped.

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Getting up the hill was tricky in the daytime. Getting down the hill, in total darkness, in high heels, while tipsy was an absolute hoot! Vesko carried our purses and walked ahead while T & I held hands and tripped wildly down the path, giggling uncontrollably and cursing the Romans the whole way down.

When we got to the bottom, Vesko had pre-ordered a grilled meat assortment at a restaurant. We also enjoyed a little more rakia (or was it wine?).

Here's the owner lighting the grill just behind our outdoor table:

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Here's Vesko lighting T's and his cigarettes with a hot coal from the grill:

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The meal was sublime (always too much and very fresh) and it was followed by what is perhaps the best ice cream I've ever had: homemade vanilla ice cream with chunks of local wild walnuts and fresh figs.

We stumbled back to the hotel (saying goodbye again to Yane, my true love on the way) and thus ended our first day with our tour guide/driver/friend.

Lord luv a duck, Michelle, that steep hill tired me out.
The toilet, I could handle, but the hill did me in.
I passed on the red wine, I simply can't drink it.

High heels! You would wear high heels on a beach to a
wiener roast, woman, you love the things.
Did you wear the ones with the mirrors?

Thanks for taking me along on your trip, it's always fun to
travel with you, you make everything a great FUN adventure.
So where do we go next?

At my age, to walk a hill like that, in heels! I would need the whole bottle of wine and then some!
What a great time ya'll had, and now we are too. Where do we go next?

Keep them coming, fun looking over your shoulder.

Early this morning we went to a restaurant for espresso and palachinki (crepes). Bulgarians are big crepe fans, and claim them as their own.

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Then we went ot the Rozen Monestary. It too was centuries old and beautiful, though cameras were forbidden, so we didn't get any good shots from the inside.

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As we saw one ancient site after another, attesting to Bulgaria's centuries-old history and importance in world civilization, I heard my dad's words before the trip: "Bulgaria? Bulgaria? Why the @%*# would you want to go to Bulgaria? What's there?" There are lots of ways I can now answer this question, and some of them are even kind! ;o)

After the monastery, we went back to Melnik and visited the Karolapulova House.

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This belonged to a family of incredible wealth, and in addition to stunning textiles and stained glass windows, we even saw a secret escape route behind a piece of furniture in the dining room to escape from the Turks.

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There was a huge wine cellar connected to this house, so of course, we had to investigate and sample.

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Bulgaria has lots of superstitions and customs. Here, in the limestone walls of the wine cellar, it is customary to press a coin into the walls. If it sticks, you are a good person. If not, well, not-so-much. Both T's and my coin stuck.

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Before we left Melnik, we went souvenir shopping. I bought a rakia set (pics another day) with a very traditional Bulgarian (hand-painted) pottery design and a serving plate. T translated for me with the shopkeeper, and as a thank you, the shopkeeper also threw in an ashtray (um, thanks?) and gave T a plastic jug of local wine. Stray animals were everywhere, and the shopkeeper was allowing a mother cat to nurse her lone kitten on a stack of textiles in her shop.

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Driving in Bulgaria is something else! The roads have stripes in the middle, but we would consider most single-lane. Drivers are very courteous and passing and making room is a dance that amazed me and Vesko executed with breathtaking precision. While on the switchbacks and hairpin curves in the mountains, we encountered both logging and stone trucks and several Gypsy caravans.

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The Gypsies were interesting. We saw several in Sophia, and all along our journey. The Bulgarians seemed to have a bit of apprehension about them, and you could always tell a Gypsy enclave within Sophia by the cartoonishly crooked roofs. They seem value their community (one never encountered a lone Gypsy), their animals (horses and donkeys), and have disdain for their property (villages and enclaves showed complete indifference to quality construction, maintenance, or investment). Exactly what one might expect from a people nomadic at heart. Oh, and they were stunningly beautiful and friendly to us on the roads.

On the way to check into our hotel that night, we stopped at a 600+ year old Sycamore tree. Those are ancient Roman ruins at her feet.

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We checked into a hotel in Ognyanovo, just outside Gotse Delchev, not far North of the Greek border in the Southwestern corner of the state. We dumped our luggage, ate a little, shared a bottle of wine (blessedly white and non-local this time), and geared up for our next adventure while the sun still shone...

More, more, more! yea! I giggled to myself all day long yesterday at the thought of you and the indignant winemaker keeper who couldn't accept a thanks (that's so American of me to think of it in this way???!). Fiddle-sticks on him. The charm of Bulgaria is seeping into my heart. ;D

a lot of the pix wouldnt open for me...computer too slow i guess. but wow! the travel log was great. made me feel like i had visited bulgaria and i only read about a third of it so far.
thanks
g

Really enjoying this, Michelle. You have a flair for noting the small things...kindness to cats by tourguide and merchant, for instance, which bring the people to life. Interesting description re the gypsies too...always been fascinated by them. Give us more, please. josh

I'm with josh, more please! I too love your flair for noting the small things, your ability to make us feel like we are right there with you. Looking forward to the next installment!

Robin, the winemaker stood out in my mind because he seemed so "un-Bulgarian" in his Bulgarian-ness!

Next we're going to Kovachevitsa, a village the EU is preserving as an architectural and historical reserve. To get there, we need to drive through some gypsy villages, and some Muslim villages of ethnic Bulgarians converted by the Turks. Each village, in spite of their proximity to one another, looked like they belonged in a separate country.

When we get to Kovachevitsa, Vesko encounters a woman he knows in the town square and she invites us into her home... only I'm having a really hard time following them. An octogenarian woman named Maria has grabbed by arm. She begins speaking to me, and in my best Bulgarian I say: "I'm sorry, I don't understand you. I don't speak Bulgarian." She replies in Bulgarian: "That's not a problem, I speak German, Spanish and French." I reply in French that I speak French and we begin to converse.

It was then I realized she was a little "off." She was very kind, and we had a lovely conversation about Bulgaria, but she had suffered a stroke and was slightly impaired. She wouldn't let go of my arm and kept repeating "Tres jolie fille!" and touching my cheek. I didn't want to be rude, and couldn't break away. T, Steve & Vesko were all waving at me to follow... finally, Vesko came, grabbed my hand, and removed my arm away from Maria's grasp, and politely explained the necessity of my departure.

Vesko's friend, Irena, was the widow of a well-known Bulgarian author. She invited us behind her gate and into her courtyard.

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Once inside, my jaw dropped. I was in a foreign place. The language was foreign, the architecture was foreign, even the air smelled different, but she had a huge flower and vegetable garden in her inner courtyard, and I recognized every plant... mostly because I grow the same ones myself!

I sort of went into little kid mode, and asked to see her veggie garden, she picked a bunch of peppers, and then picked a cucumber and a carrot and gave them to me as a gift. I was afraid to comment any more, lest she give me a head of cabbage!

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She took us into her (400-ish year house)... the first room on the main level had been dedicated to livestock, and when her children were young, she had kept goats and sheep here. No sooner had I commented on the dried "money plant" bouquets she kept here and she gave me seeds.

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Irena's house had open terraces on all levels, each individual room off the terrace had a separate door. Here's her kitchen:

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She showed us the rest of her home, including a large collection of textiles she wove. We talked about her husband, who's last book was very critical of the government. She showed us her photo albums, and we thoroughly enjoyed her hospitality...

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Here are some photos from the streets of Kovatchevitsa:

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Doncha love the livestock in the streets? We saw cows, horses, goats and sheep in the street everywhere we went:

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...and dogs

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more later... we're still on day 5, and it's still daylight... barely...

Your comments are so descriptive and the pictures speak for themselves! It looks like a different world, but the people seem so friendly and welcoming. More, please. :>)

Loved the enclosed garden with the log seats ...the dried flowers and textile hanging...the photos could have come from pages of Country Living magazine. Then your outstanding photo of the two houses almost touching at the second level above the narrow stoned alleyway...so familiar the first two pix and so foreign the third. I'm glad the architecture is to be preserved. I noticed the modern appliances in the kitchen ...do you think they are typical or was this an above-average income family?

Hope you see no golden arches! josh

Josh, this was an above average income woman, in that she was the widow of a well-known author who wrote many books after the collapse of communism. Make no mistake: Bulgaria has a lot of history, but it's an entirely modern country. Nearly everybody has appliances... well some appliances, anyway. Every washing machine I saw was front-loading and in the kitchen. Nobody has dryers. Everybody has at least one balcony, and they line dry their clothes. This is true of both city and country folk.

I didn't see a single dishwasher while I was there. Also, I experienced very little AC, which was uncomfortable only in that we were experiencing record highs (100+ F)... this accounts for us spending so much time in the (cooler!) mountains!

Here's a picture of a backyard in the next city we went to. Notice the satellite dish?

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When we left Irena, she asked if we would copy our pics to CD and send it with Vesko on his next trip by. Concerned about compatible file formats, I asked (through my interpreter) if she wouldn't prefer prints. She laughed and said "No, I have a TV, a DVD player, a computer, and more. Your file formats won't be a problem."

One last thing about Kovachevitsa, its designation makes its property very desirable... especially to people from other EU nations looking to snap up bargains. Irena told us property has been selling in this village at the heretofore unheard of rate of 1,000 Euros per square metre ($147 US per square foot?) Sometimes we change things the most when we try to keep things exactly as they were!

After Kovachevitsa, we went to Leshten. Lots to see here. There are beautiful gardens attached to restaurants, and some very charming old buildings have been converted to hotels. There are only two official residents of Leshten. It was dark, but Vesko knocked on their gate and asked them to let us in to meet them. They were in the middle of milking their goats (!) but they obliged.

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She's 76 and he's 81. Five times they begged us to drink rakia with them, but we were reticent to continue our interruption so late at night. They could not have been friendlier or more charming.

By this point I was understanding a surprising amount of what was being said. Certain phrases amused me though... One was "Dah Bah Dah" which was interjected quickly in a conversation when the listener agreed with the speaker ("Dah" means yes). To me, it always sounded like "Yabadaba-doo!" and would always make me giggle. Well Vesko had a surprise for us at the very top of this hill. He called it the "Yabadaba-doo house" for obvious reasons.

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Vesko found the power and we turned on the porch lights and enjoyed a fantastic view. He said he knew the owner and had always wanted to stay here (no one was when we were there). He said the house had satellite and wifi. I wondered why anyone would go to what seemed to me to be the end of the earth to plug in.

We walked back to the car (much easier to negotiate those cobblestone hills when one is sober and wearing proper footwear) and drove back to our hotel in Ognoyanovo. We wanted to eat dinner on the patio by the pool, but there were no free tables, so Vesko got the waiters to carry an indoor table outside to accommodate us.

Vesko had told us he had a surprise for us and asked us to wear our swimsuits and cover-ups to dinner. After dinner, he strapped a spelunking light to his head, took us off the hotel grounds, walked us across a narrow and precarious suspension bridge (daylight pics don't do it justice), and up the road for about five minutes to a geyser-fed hot spring mineral bath that's been operational since Roman times. The moon was bright and barely waning, the air was clean, cool and fresh, and the water was bath-tub warm.

My friend is a very driven woman. She's a serious scientist with lots of business responsibilities... and we learned about then that she's also a hopeless "city girl." The whole way up she was terrified of encountering snakes or bears... and even frogs!

After we had soaked for a good long time, we went back to the hotel grounds, sat in a circle, and drank Vesko's pear rakia until the call of sleep finally became louder than the chorus of crickets.

Steve took these pics the next morning... they don't do the experience justice.

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And thus ended our fifth day, and second with Vesko...

You may feel the pictures do not do the experience justice, and perhaps alone they do not..........but, with your "narration" I feel like I walked that bridge also. Excellent!
I am amazed that the pictures show "rustic" homes and towns, but they might be more high tech than a lot of us!

I want to go!!

Love your narration and the pictures. You should be a travel writer!

Color me green with envy!