Embedded Files
from Wikipedia: Tsarevets is a medieval stronghold located on a hill with the same name in Veliko Tarnovo in northern Bulgaria. Tsarevets is 206 metres (676 ft) above sea level. It served as the Second Bulgarian Empire's primary fortress and strongest bulwark from 1185 to 1393, housing the royal and the patriarchal palaces, and is a popular tourist attraction.
Yesterday was a travel day out of Bucharest. I saw almost nothing of the city except for a nice restaurant. I was not really interested in the city which looks like every other middle size middle European city I have been in that didn’t have an old town to speak of. So yesterday morning we went in a van crammed in, with a trailer pulling our luggage going behind, We went from Romania to Bulgaria. The border crossing was long and tedious and I have no idea why except that the guards were presumably trained by the Soviets. We finally got to the town of Veliko Tărnovo by about 6 o’clock and went to another good restaurant where I had two so-called meatballs which were large beef patties with french fries. We then went to a rather gaudy sound and light show featuring the restored walls and castles of Tsarevets, one of the hills of the city.
Tărnovo was the capital of Bulgaria In the 16th c. but has been a town since prehistoric times. It has been occupied by Roman Empire, Ottoman Empire, Byzantine Empire, USSR.. you name it. Nearby is the small town of Arbanasi, with construction set apparently dating back to the Ottoman empire. there are also a couple of very old churches. I went in one of them and it was wall-to-wall frescoes from the 16th and 17th centuries. They have been almost all restored quite beautifully.
We came back from Arabansi to Tărnovo and after a light lunch the group dispersed. I walked up the Tsarvetes Fortress hill. It took quite a long time, but I made it and even went up the elevator to the top of the tower, meeting a couple from our group there. This has all been reconstructed and I can’t find out much about when, but I think it was in the late 20th century. This is a really a town that many Bulgarians like to visit as well as foreign tourists. One of the restaurants we were supposed to eat in, in Arbanasi, had 200 people coming. Our little band of 15 would have been swamped.
It is hot in the sun but there is a nice breeze and you as you can see from the pictures it is beautiful here. This is the first long trek up a hill for me on this trip. I love being able to go by myself, at my own pace, though here again the damned cobblestones make going slow and annoying.
We ate at a spectacular restaurant overlooking the river in Veliko Tarnavo. In the morning we caught taxis to the bus station to go to the bus to Sofia. Umut took us on an orientation walk and i walked on to see the Alexander Nevsky cathedral before going to dinner with Tsetse, a friend who lives there, with her family, but whom I know for her many years working summers on Monhegan. She drove me around some after dinner. Sofia seems to be a more pleasant place by far than Bucharest was. She and I ate at an excellent restaurant, Pod Lipite whose name means “under the linden tree.” The food was excellent - indeed both Tsetse and Umut know the good restaurants and take us to them!
Then it was goodbye to many of our group and on to Plovdiv, another smallish city with Roman ruins and broad pedestrian streets. We are down to 5 people and Umut now: an older Australian couple, a Swiss woman, my roommate, who is an Englishwoman, and me. Plovdiv is a charming city compared to Bucharest, and again I happily and slowly made my way around alone the next morning. There is the end of a very large Roman stadium at one end of the pedestrianized shopping street, dating from around first century a.d., and an amphitheater that has been unearthed high up on one of the seven hills of this old Thracian town. The view from there is over the city, the streets going up to it are narrow and cobbled, which is hard to walk on. But the day was beautiful, if hot.
Now we are about to enter Istanbul after a long but comfortable bus ride. Almost the whole way from Plovdiv has been passing through fields planted with different crops. Little in the way of farm buildings, just fields.
Google Sites
Report abuse