Rila Monastery: quest for monk meeting and simpler food

We have turned our touring over to Odysseys Unlimited! They’ve got a big 52-seat bus for the 16 of us and it’s a fantastic treat to just drop my bags onto a bench and look out the window as we drive.

For those of you still shaking your heads at my 24-day turnaround time between trips to Europe, I am happy to point out that TWO of our Odysseys tour members got back from Europe last week, had 7 days at home in the US, and headed right back to Bulgaria for this tour. They make me look like the picture of sane travel planning!

We had an initial walking tour through the streets of Sofia. It’s an excellent mix of architecture. Below is the St. George Rotunda – oldest building in Sofia, from about 400 AD – surrounded by more recent Brutalist architecture:

And here’s the Alexander Nevsky cathedral, from 1882:

Here’s the interior, which is full of marble, alabaster, and onyx. The pictures are not mine – it’s an extra 5 dollars to take a picture in there:

Here is St. Nicholas the Miracle Maker church, from 1907:

And then there’s this unrestored communist architecture, with a newly restored building peeking out from the back:

Here’s another cool shot. It’s the Baron Gendovich house, which is just an office building now, but it’s considered the first “skyscraper” of Sofia, built in 1914, and makes it clear that the architect of that skyscraper had not seen much of other large city skyscraper offerings at the time. The Grand Hotel Sofia, off to the right, is our tour hotel. (Pic not mine)

Here’s the old Communist Party headquarters, classic Stalinist architecture from 1953. Pic not mine:

We toured Sofia with a local guide who told us this incredible story from the St. Nedelya Church, pictured below, built in the 19th century:

In 1925, there was a massacre at the church. Hundreds of military elite had gathered there for the funeral of General Georgiev. In the years leading up to 1925, the Communist Party was under increasing scrutiny and pressure from the Bulgarian Democratic Alliance ruling government, and so, in a series of targeted attacks that are way too complicated for this blog, they staged an attack. First, they murdered General Georgiev in front of a Sofia church. They, knowing there would be a large service for him, they loaded the funeral site – the St. Nedelya Church pictured above – with 25kg of explosives, carrying them up slowly over the course of a few weeks and storing them in the attic.

The explosives were detonated during the funeral, killing 150 and injuring 500. Amongst the dead were mayor of Sofia, the police chief, the commander of the Bulgarian army, and many military generals. The Communists had also hoped to kill the Monarch of Bulgaria, Tsar Boris III, but he was late in arriving, due to slow traffic as he was en route from another funeral – a friend killed during a failed attack on Tsar Boris’ life.

The backstabbing and and conspiracies involved in the rise of the Communists is hard to follow and so I’ll stop there and move to something easier to share.

One thing that Grace is just starting to grasp are the food issues I inevitably report to you. She – like most of you – is appalled when I report that we had dinner at McDonald’s. But by Day 3 of our Odysseys tour, she is admitting that she might be willing to join me at the Golden Arches. The problem – as always – is large portions of unidentifiable foods served late at night. Here’s an example – the dinner we were served last night. Here’s the “starter” salad, with my hand included for proportion.

Here’s the “appetizer” chicken strips and fries, which Grace was pretty excited about until she bit into the chicken and determined that it was of seriously dubious quality – gristly, with bonus chunks that served as an immediate appetite suppressant. Following this, Grace was served a skillet full of duck. My photo really didn’t turn out but I’ll put it in anyways so you get the full flavor of the meal.

Here’s a bonus food shot for you. This is some sort of animal part in a jar, which we passed on:

I’m writing this to you on the bus to the Rila Monastery, up in the mountains outside of Sofia. As we ride, our local guide, Yurdana, tells about Bulgaria’s struggles as a European country on the poorer end of the spectrum. Bulgaria has the fastest decreasing population in Europe. There are 52,000 children a year born here – in a population of 6.8 million. The exodus is being driven by poor economy, extremely poor health care system with almost no prophylactic health services, and limited knowledge of healthy farming and food production practices.

Yurdana says that if you look at an infant formula prepared for sale in the UK and then you look at that same brand of infant formula prepared for sale in Bulgaria, then you will see that the Bulgarian offering is manufactured with lower quality ingredients and that forms the foundation for what becomes an overall unhealthy food distribution system.

Is it true? I don’t know but it sure sheds some light on the unexpected crunch in Grace’s chicken nuggets last night. It’s also a reminder that there’s nothing wrong with having some crackers and a granola bar for dinner. Lest you think I am just too negative about food, I’ve got to show you this. It’s local walnuts, suspended in a jar of local honey. I’m dying to buy a jar:

Rila Monastery is probably the top tour site in Bulgaria. It’s the largest Eastern Orthodox monastery in Bulgaria. It dates from 927AD and still houses about 60 monks according to Wikipedia but only 6 monks according to our guide Yurdana. We looked around really diligently and only saw 2.

Here are some pictures from the courtyard. It’s truly gorgeous. No interior pictures allowed.

Travel presents a unique chance to learn the quirks of your partners. Even Grace has managed to surprise me. Is she hitting her head or losing her phone a la Ron? No, but it turns out that she is obsessed by monks. In the days leading up to our Rila Monastery visit, she mentioned her dream of meeting a monk as often as Ron likes to mention/discuss the weather with me.

So while we enjoyed our tour of the Rila Monastery, we were simultaneously busy with trying to get Grace as close to a monk as possible. Through sheer parental determination, with some creepy stalking and fast camera skills, I managed to get a picture of Grace with a monk right behind her, so her dream was partially fulfilled even though she didn’t get to have her much-desired get acquainted with a monk conversation to ask him what he eats for breakfast. (Note from our research indicates they eat rice and pickles, which we may both be begging for after a few more really large dinners with heavily sauced meat products.)

Here are a couple of pictures from the bus ride out to Rila Monastery – it takes about 2 hours from Sofia and the countryside is green and beautiful.

We stopped briefly in a village called Zvinitsa, famous for white storks and stork nests. Storks are considered good luck here. When a stork nests on your house it is a sign of good fortune upon your family. If your house is chosen as a nesting site, you just leave the nest in place. Yurdana says that if the nest covers your chimney, you are required to leave your heat off so as to protect the nest. When the storks come and build a nest, they often stay 10 or 15 years. Yurdana says that people who find themselves in this situation either build a new chimney or install a ductless heat system.

Here’s a lucky(??) house with their chimney blocked:

And here’s a couple of the storks:

That’s it from Sofia. Tomorrow we head out to Plovdiv. I’ll leave you with this picture for Ron – we’re missing you out here!!!