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Have now updated the Romanian and Bulgarian part of our travelogue, scroll down for the full story.

Our Turkish photos are now up to date on Flickr: Click here to see them

Turkish Delight

Here's a link to a few pictures which Jason took when he and Edd came out to visit us in Turkey. Needless to say we had a brilliant time together.

Turkish Delight

БЪΛГАРИЯ: Monasteries and Walnuts

The immediate necessity upon entering Бъλгария is to buy a Cyrillic roadmap! Navigating a new country’s road system is always challenging but becomes a farce when all the road signs you see are completely unintelligible! We have no idea at all where we are most of the time. We know where we think we are and where we want to be but ne’er the twain shall meet! We finally solve the problem by cross-referencing between two maps: one in English, with which we plan our route, and one in Cyrillic, with which we decipher the signposts. All of this adds to the sense of achievement when finally arriving at the intended destination.

Our first conquest is Ивaново (Ivanovo), a gorge just south of the border famous for its carved and painted Byzantine rock monasteries. Driving through farmland, between hedgerows laden with sloes, rosehips and wild clematis, we wind down to the main attraction, which is a church perched high on the side of the gorge, resplendent with beautiful 14th century frescoes: really stunning images.

More exciting for us, however, is the discovery that on the other side of the gorge, accessible only by foot or bicycle, there are many other unvisited sites to investigate. The next day sees us wobbling intrepidly into the wilds, feeling like explorers of the dark unknown.

In the still silence of the gorge, broken only by the warbling of water fowl, we spend a happy day scrabbling around the rocky cliffside, richly rewarded by the discovery of a series of more humble, but to us infinitely more exciting, painted rock churches.

This gorge is many miles long and has been inhabited since the 5^th century. There are ancient villages in its fertile folds and the inevitable fortifications that wealth and power bring.

 

We follow the twisting roads, descending into the valley to investigate places of interest and find a perfect riverside place to stay for a few days, visited only by sheep with their shepherds and the occasional horse-drawn farm cart.

Basil is delighted to find that the local town of Russe has wireless internet across all of its centre. A cheap scratch card gives you an access code and 500 Mb of bandwidth. We spend a cosy evening online in our van whilst parked in a side street. Useful for visitors, but not sure about the long-term effects on the inhabitants.

 

Moving on towards Вeлико Tьрново (Veliko Tarnavo), central Bulgaria, we notice people carrying long poles over their shoulders. The traveller’s life is full of such mysteries, you can only speculate and wait for things to become clear. All is revealed when we see somebody bashing a tree and realise that he is gathering walnuts. The roads are lined with walnut trees and they yield sacks of nuts, we are soon part of the harvest frenzy!

 

We make a spontaneous decision to follow a signpost to another painted monastery and are delighted to find that Autumn, on the wheel of life depicted in one of its frescoes, is symbolised by someone bashing a walnut tree!

 

We are awed to meet one of the monks, a tiny, wizened man with long flowing white hair and beard. The monastery is a place of incredible calm and peace and productivity – definitely a good place to be in uncertain times in the past, and maybe now – makes you wonder.

 

We meet up with two Americans KC and Jonathan and Toby an Irishman who are heading our way. So our van is full again as we drive southeast to investigate the Black Sea coast, which is one of the routes into Turkey.

Stopping to visit another (!) convent, we are again struck by the tranquillity and strength of their simple lifestyle, but are told by one of the nuns that all of the sisters are very old and that no young people are joining them so their world is slowly fading into the past. She wants to know if people in the west are contented…

The Black Sea coast is a mostly a destination for eastern European and Russian holidaymakers and the season is mostly over now. The weather cool and windy so we decide to move on towards Turkey, our American friends decide to stay but for Toby it’s Istanbul or bust. The three of us set off for the border…

Breb the Beautiful

 

Breb is beautiful: carved wooden houses with shingle roofs and verandas, and a horse-drawn sledges hanging on the back of every barn – a reminder of the cold winters here, with deep snow for much of the time.

Some have fantastic carved gates, the size of which denotes the owner’s prestige in the village and they all have a privy in the garden. There are no roads in the village, just tracks, and the houses are spread out amongst their orchards and fields. Most people walk around the village stopping to greet neighbours on the way.

 

The houses have electricity but the water is piped down from the mountain to standpipes in the gardens, so, apart from this and the satellite dishes and wellies, everything is as it has been for hundreds of years.

 

They are practically self-sufficient: each household has a horse, a pig, a couple of cows some chicken and a nicely manured veggie patch! Also a couple of fields to grow hay for the winter. We watch the gradual bloom of ‘teletubby’ haystacks over the summer, every day more and more appear.

 

Apparently one cow will eat its way through four or five of these each year! The local market reflects this lifestyle, selling livestock, horseshoes, rakes and scythe blades.

 

The women wear traditional clothing – a knee-length skirt, full and tied at the waist, a blouse and flowery headscarf; men often wear funny little hats made from birch bark and felt homespun waistcoats. We are surprised to see many of the young people still embracing this.

 

People are incredibly friendly here, – it’s difficult to believe that people who work so hard and have so few material possessions can be so cheerful, friendly, welcoming and generous – but it’s the same story the world over.

 

Duncan and Penny eventually find a couple of houses to buy, one of them  "in need of some repair" to the roof!

We spend a day up the road in Sapanta home to the "Merry Cemetery" where colourfully painted carved wooden gravestones depict a scene from the life of the deceased along with a witty limerick.

Here also we find a fantastic and newly constructed all wooden church, testimony to the woodworking skills that still exist.

The village is also hosting a festival of traditional music and dance from the region which climaxes with a stomping set from the gypsy band Taraful Codrisul.

The festival results in Basil appearing on the front page of the local newspaper along with local dignatories!

 

We wave goodbye to Penny, Duncan and the kids who catch an overnight train to Bucarest en route to the UK before heading on to Egypt for the winter.

 

We attend a wedding celebration, which starts at 8 o’clock in the evening. There is a live band playing traditional music – mad fiddles and accordions – and the villagers dance circle and line dances far into the night, and beyond, with 20 minute breaks every couple of hours for another course of food and liquid fuel. By 3 am we’ve had it and stagger back to bed. We’re amazed to hear them still singing and stamping at 7 o’clock the next morning and even more amazed when the party finally winds down at noon!!

We go to the traditional Giulesti festival in the village. It isn't a special event put on for tourists, just a good excuse for everybody to put on their Sunday best and enjoy the music and dancing.

Here's a link to a short video we made of the dancing.

We shelter here, in the cool shade of apple trees, for August whilst forest fires rage over much of southern Europe. But, all good things come to an end, otherwise how could you move on to the next good thing – in our case Jason and Edwin coming to meet us in three week’s time in Istanbul!!

Fond farewells to Juan, Lucia and Joanna at Pension Lucia, where we have been parked; fond farewells to Breb, where we are sure that we will return, and – wagons roll. We emerge, blinking onto Romania’s shocking roads.

Across the mountains of Maramures, stopping briefly here and there.

We see more of the incredible richness and diversity of traditional buildings in Romania. Each area has its distinct styles. They are particularly fond of roof, window and veranda embellishments.

 

We spend a long and somewhat smoky day on a wood-fired steam engine, chugging up and up a mountain logging trail alongside the river that they use to float the trees downstream. It is very beautiful and we afterwards hear that it features in Michael Palin’s latest TV travelogue, set in Eastern Europe.

 

Other days are spent visiting a couple of the spectacular waterfalls in the area: climbing up steep mountain tracks through beech and fir forests or wizzing over the tops of them on a ski-lift!

 

This water is put to good use lower down in the valley where it powers traditional wooden 'washing machines' - very impressive.

 

Then down, down, down, between gardens with their apple, pear and plum trees laden with fruit (most of which will be distilled into the polenca of which the Romanians are so fond!)

 

... onto the plains and the long trek south past Bucharest and over the great River Danube to Bulgaria...