Today we decided to head North about 110kms to the small town of Vratsa. There were a number of places that sounded interesting an hour or two's drive further on, but that would have then meant a 3hr drive home and regrettably I felt that was too far.
Ian found us a lovely, scenic route through the Iskar Gorge and we took our time enjoying the winding road (very safe, low speed limit, plenty of crash barriers and generally good driving).
Frustratingly, parking bays never seemed to co-incide with the glorious views, but we stopped where we safely could.
Ian loves a rope/slat bridge (not)
Fishing is obviously very popular
Minty and the Old Bird again
We drove past this lovely church and decided to stop and explore a bit which unfortunately involved crossing the railway line (unfortunately I have a pathological fear of railway lines and even ones with barriers fill me with terror).
We ventured down some steps and came to a beautiful, overgrown, graveyard. On one side male and female graves were in separate rows and in another area more simple, family plots.
The setting was lovely, beside the river with the view back up to the church. What a place to finally rest, sigh!
Sharp-eyed Ian spotted this little frog so I spent a few minutes terrorising it (with my camera, I hasten to add!).
We drove on towards the Cherepish Monastery but in fact passed it without realising and had to double back. It was similar in design to the monastery at Rila but considerably smaller and it was surprisingly difficult to park. There were quite a few people around, being very noisy and behaving quite inappropriately given the setting - we surmised that a Christening had just taken place, but who knows?
The riverside setting was beautiful.
And the graveyard for deceased priests quite lovely.
We then drove on to Vratsa as Ian was particularly interested in seeing the Rogozen Treasure, a collection of 6th-4th century BC Thracian silverware which was unearthed in 1985 by a farmer digging to lay new drainage pipes on his nearby land.
We stopped at a Lidl Supermarket on the outskirts of town and bought some rolls and cheese for lunch. As we were getting back into the car, a chap called over saying he'd heard English being spoken and just wanted to say hello. He was doing advisory work for a nearby religious community and although he didn't know exactly where the museum was, he was able to give us the helpful info that parking was free on a Sunday. Driving through the town we saw a lovely park and decided to stop there for our lunch; turned out the museum was just the other side of this rather communistic square.
We were the only visitors on a Sunday afternoon and I think the curator himself came over to greet us. He decided Ian was definitely in the concessions age group and helpfully undercharged me too - £1 instead of £2. He then gave us detailed instructions as to which areas of the museum we should see first, saving the Rogozen Treasure until last - I think he didn't want us to go straight to that and then leave (which we would have done).
We spent an interesting hour or so looking at various things; a lot of which were only captioned in Bulgarian so we weren't quite sure what we were looking at but there were a couple of superbly preserved 2,000 year old skeletons.
When we left, we wandered across the very large square and had a cup of tea/beer, but once again the overpowering cigarette smoke made us hurry to leave.
We opted to take the shorter in miles route home, which involved driving across the mountain (hill) but although the road was quite winding, the surface was good and there was very little traffic. The view from the top was lovely.
We stopped to investigate this little church.
There was no one there to tell me not to, so I took a sneaky shot, but it was so small I couldn't fit the altar in.
A pretty, but tatty, butterfly.
Last view of Minty and the Old Bird.
The rest of the driving home was on a fast road and uneventful apart from a 20 minute deviation for road works.
Having parked the car safely back at the hotel, we walked into town for a final meal on Vitosha Boulevard.
A couple of the illuminated churches we passed on the walk home.
Frustratingly, parking bays never seemed to co-incide with the glorious views, but we stopped where we safely could.
Ian loves a rope/slat bridge (not)
Minty and the Old Bird again
We drove past this lovely church and decided to stop and explore a bit which unfortunately involved crossing the railway line (unfortunately I have a pathological fear of railway lines and even ones with barriers fill me with terror).
We ventured down some steps and came to a beautiful, overgrown, graveyard. On one side male and female graves were in separate rows and in another area more simple, family plots.
The setting was lovely, beside the river with the view back up to the church. What a place to finally rest, sigh!
Sharp-eyed Ian spotted this little frog so I spent a few minutes terrorising it (with my camera, I hasten to add!).
We drove on towards the Cherepish Monastery but in fact passed it without realising and had to double back. It was similar in design to the monastery at Rila but considerably smaller and it was surprisingly difficult to park. There were quite a few people around, being very noisy and behaving quite inappropriately given the setting - we surmised that a Christening had just taken place, but who knows?
The riverside setting was beautiful.
And the graveyard for deceased priests quite lovely.
We then drove on to Vratsa as Ian was particularly interested in seeing the Rogozen Treasure, a collection of 6th-4th century BC Thracian silverware which was unearthed in 1985 by a farmer digging to lay new drainage pipes on his nearby land.
We stopped at a Lidl Supermarket on the outskirts of town and bought some rolls and cheese for lunch. As we were getting back into the car, a chap called over saying he'd heard English being spoken and just wanted to say hello. He was doing advisory work for a nearby religious community and although he didn't know exactly where the museum was, he was able to give us the helpful info that parking was free on a Sunday. Driving through the town we saw a lovely park and decided to stop there for our lunch; turned out the museum was just the other side of this rather communistic square.
We were the only visitors on a Sunday afternoon and I think the curator himself came over to greet us. He decided Ian was definitely in the concessions age group and helpfully undercharged me too - £1 instead of £2. He then gave us detailed instructions as to which areas of the museum we should see first, saving the Rogozen Treasure until last - I think he didn't want us to go straight to that and then leave (which we would have done).
We spent an interesting hour or so looking at various things; a lot of which were only captioned in Bulgarian so we weren't quite sure what we were looking at but there were a couple of superbly preserved 2,000 year old skeletons.
When we left, we wandered across the very large square and had a cup of tea/beer, but once again the overpowering cigarette smoke made us hurry to leave.
We opted to take the shorter in miles route home, which involved driving across the mountain (hill) but although the road was quite winding, the surface was good and there was very little traffic. The view from the top was lovely.
We stopped to investigate this little church.
There was no one there to tell me not to, so I took a sneaky shot, but it was so small I couldn't fit the altar in.
A pretty, but tatty, butterfly.
Last view of Minty and the Old Bird.
The rest of the driving home was on a fast road and uneventful apart from a 20 minute deviation for road works.
Having parked the car safely back at the hotel, we walked into town for a final meal on Vitosha Boulevard.
A couple of the illuminated churches we passed on the walk home.
