Aladzha Monastery

We only popped in here briefly on our way to Romania and Bucharest. But it was pretty intriguing. It's not what you'd expect from a monastery as there were no buildings - instead the monks had lived in a cave complex that they had built into the rock during the 12th century. It was possible to climb up into what had been their chapel, cells and kitchen.
Upstairs chapel:


Main Church:


We also visited the Catacombs near the 'monastery':


And we were on our way to Romania ... you'd think it would get cooler driving north but it only continued to get hotter and more humid.

Varna

(20/21 August)
We made it to Varna the next day, after Joanna had tussled with a long long line of traffic. Obviously car ownership has gone up, but the roads haven't caught the trend yet. We had a little difficulty finding where everything was as the road signage was minimal. But soon we sorted our hotel and everything and went for a walk in the large Sea Garden, a lovely park with fountains & funfairs, museums & monuments.

The next day we got on with the tourist attractions to give us a chance to swim in the Black Sea before sunset. Sorry, no photos of that, or even of the cigarette littered beaches. Anti-smoking campaigns haven't got a lot of traction here.

But we did make it to Bulgaria's largest ruin, the Roman Bath House (2nd century AD). It would've been quite impressive in its day, but has sadly fallen into disrepair:

The prize bit would have been the public toilet which is apparently in reasonable repair and has dolphin fountains for hand-washing... but that bit was closed :(

After a quick wander through the main square for lunch, and past the cathedral we made it to the very impressive Archaelogical Museum. Apparently you're not allowed photos or guns:


We're not entirely sure why they have to specify no guns (banks do too - you'd think it was obvious), but the museum was well catered for english readers, and we learnt some very interesting things. Varna was actually the site of the first European civilisation, in 5000BC - before Egypt or Mesopotamia. There were examples of the first human worked gold in the world - and lots of it! Unfortunately the Black Sea rose 10m and the community had to be abandoned, until the Greeks set up there in 600BC. There was quite a lot of cool things from Greek and Roman times too.

The drinking challenge was also met. This Bulgarian drink was in fact 2 spirits mixed. One of aniseed lollies, and the other mint-ish (it was hard to tell over the aniseed):

This is one of Ben's favourites.

Burgas

(19 August)
So it turns out leaving Turkey is all a bit of a process. As it was getting in, but there each desk told us to go to the next desk, so we could follow our noses. Here only the last guy was helpful so we had to keep going back to him to see if we'd got it right this time... The car, we realised, had a visa too, and it needed to be checked out of the country. Anyway, after quite a bit of chasing our tail we worked it out, and having entered Bulgaria once before we knew what to do there, and flew through that.

It still left us somewhat late on the road (particularly us with our famous early starts), and the Bulgarian roads weren't particularly speedy. The horse and carts didn't slow us much (Ben's still disappointed we were moving too fast to get a picture of the cart before the horses), but the potholes did... So we only got as far as Burgas.

Lonely Planet isn't particularly kind to Burgas, despite it evidently being a reasonably popular tourist destination. We can't claim to have made it to the beach on our overnight stop, but the bars and cafes all seemed excellent. And our dinner waiter was a Liverpool fan (he even went out and got his new shirt to show us), so we got on very well...

The other thing we noticed about Burgas (and would notice about Varna) was the sheer number of Real Estate agents aimed at British customers. Presumably the locals aren't as exciting to sell to, but it must be quite a hot market. Somehow we resisted buying our own slice of Bulgarian heaven, as lovely as we're sure it'd be...

Rila Monastery, Bulgaria

After a couple of leisurely days in Sofia we thought we'd try a bit of hard graft at a monastery. Rila is renowned in Bulgaria as the place that kept alive their culture during the centuries "under the Turkish yoke". It's a wee hike up into the mountains off the beaten track but nothing the clio can't cope with.


As it turns out there was no hard graft in exchange for staying the night, just ten Euros each. The hard graft we could have had was getting up at 6.30 to go to this church, but on deliberation we felt we wouldn't get much out of the experience as our Bulgarian is limited to say the least. But we did get to stay in a monk's cell:


The monastery was founded by Saint John of Rila who was a hermit in the 10th century. In the church there was a small alter with a draw of relics; most people seemed to be a bit overcome so we didn't like to ask which bits of which saints were there!


It was our first day of rain in weeks which made the setting very atmospheric in the morning mist. Our new found serenity went well with our breakfast of donuts from the local bakery that was doing a roaring trade (helps to have a monopoly on brekkie).


Ben failed to shut the roof fully the night before so the rain not only gave the outside of the clio a much needed wash ... everytime we turned a corner, we got a little shower as well. Still we weren't as wet as these travellers on the road.

Sofia

Exiting Serbia we got our first passport stamps - Fantastic! Ben was particularly excited. First stamp he's managed to get in his British passport. Getting into Bulgaria wasn't the usual hassle-free experience one expects with the EU, with about 5 stops to get disinfected, have passports checked, insurance checked, pay road tax etc... Bulgaria is also an hour forward, so as we drove off into Bulgaria it was suddenly quite late. And although the driving was on the improve, the roads weren't, with lots of pot-holes to negotiate.
So we got to Sofia quite late. The first reasonably central hotel looked good (Bulgaria doesn't really "do" camping), and we popped in there. The attached restaurant had a singer with an amazing mullet, a retro-synthesizer style, and the speakers turned up to 11. So dinner may have tasted nice enough, but the ears did bleed a little...

Next day we set out with a hiss and a roar... well, okay, we managed to get out of the hotel before midday at least. We popped into Sveta Nedelya, a church bombed in 1925 by communists trying to assasinate the king (failed, but killed lots of innocents). Orthodox doesn't seem so dissimilar from catholic, but we're no doubt missing fine points.

Next we found St George's Rotunda famous for hosting the Serdica conference on Christianity in 343 (okay, the theology geek comment is added purely for the Rev Dr David Clark). Sofia was a thriving city by the name of Serdica in Roman times, it changed names a couple of times until before settling on Sofia in the 14th century, after the name of its most famous church (we popped in there too). St George's Rotunda has some amazing (very old) frescos, but, like all their churches, you aren't allowed photos inside - so here's the outside:


Sofia's main picture-postcard is St Alexander Nevski Cathedral, with its gold domes. It's also the biggest cathedral in the Balkans:


That being plenty enough churches we got Ben his Bulgrian drink, Rakia. In contrast to the difficulty of the previous countries, in Bulgaria there are a long list of Rakias to have with your appetiser-salad. If you don't want milk, which seems a popular bar drink here.


We moved onto dinner, with which Ben inflicted more Bulgarin culture on Joanna. But enough of the yoghurt jokes. There was a stage show of Bulgarian music and dancing, which was...


In other achievements: into the 2nd trimester and Joanna finally manages to finish a plate of food:


Next stop: Monastery in the middle of nowhere.