I was recently invited to a wedding, a “destination wedding” as cool kids call them nowadays. Some friends from university were getting married and the bride’s family is from Bulgaria (a bit of a hint as to where the wedding happened!). They very kindly offered to take the wedding party around Bulgaria for a 5-ish day trip after the ceremony, I was so impressed with the beauty of this country that I’ve decided that it was worth writing a bit about this.
A Bulgarian landscape
Once the many glass of rakia (a bulgarian typical spirit, or more specifically the bulgarian declination of a drink found all over the balkan region) started to wear off, on the day after the wedding we set off for a walking tour of Sofia – Bulgaria’s capital – which lasted about two hours.
While the tour was not long enough for us to visit all the attractions in Sofia or to even enter all the places we visited, it felt well organised and quite nice. We glanced at many churches, christian and orthodox, synagogues and mosques, got a run down of the most important building from the communist era, drank the 38 Celsius mineral water springing underneath Sofia with the fountain being next to the gorgeous bathhouse (now a history museum), “re-enacted” Bulgaria’s many conquerings and liberation, discovered Sofia’s main road is paved with (very slippery) yellow bricks, looked at the main theatre and also learned how the Cyrillic alphabet was created.
The Central Bath (Tsentralna Banya)
Alexander Nevsky Cathedral
After a nice dinner and a good night sleep, we set off for Arbanasi in the morning, a tiny town that used to be a settlement of mostly Albanians traders, just shy of three hours from Sofia, crossing the Balkans mountains.
After a hefty lunch at Mekhana Izvora, we visited one rich merchant house (Konstantsaliev house) which has now been turned into an ethnographic museum (I did know this word before but heard it plenty of times during this trip!).
Mekhana Izvora
At this stage I should mention that all (and I do really mean all) meals in Bulgaria start with a salad, usually a shopska one.
We then moved to Veliko Tarnovo, where we visited the Tsarevets Fortress (remember this one).
A bit of Veliko Tarnovo and the other valley (the one with no fortress)
Tsarevets Fortress – a bit of a hike!
The view from our hotel room – fancy!
After all that walking we went for some more walking around the historical city center until it was time to have dinner on the hotel terrace, with direct view of a “sound and light show” that depicted various historical events over the fortress.
The light and show from the hotel terrace
After another good night sleep (actually a very short sleep as we ended up staying up late and raided some minibars as one of the guests had to leave early and we wanted to give a proper send off), we crossed the Balkans again to reach the ethno village Etar, where local arts and trades are still performed like the olden days.
A shot of the workshops
We then left for the Starosel Wine and Spa complex where we spent the next day relaxing and tasting wine.
Wine tasting time
After all the (locally produced) rakia, we travelled to the Bachkovo Monastery “Uspenie Bogorodichno” where we had a quick tour and then lunch.
The new church from the monks quarters
We then reached Plovdiv, where we had one last dinner all together (after hitting the hotel pool) and a walking tour of the old town on the following day.
Another rich merchant house, apparently featuring 137 glass windows
The looks and feel of Plovid are very different from Sofia, and I actually preferred it to the capital, in the end it was the old capital!
After the last drive to reach Sofia in time for some people to get on their flight, some of the remaining people decided to hit a rakia bar. While we waited for a seat at Raketa – a restaurant with communist themed decor – we tried some rakia cocktails at the Sputnik cocktail bar. I had a “Balkan Milkpunch” made with plum rakia, black garlic, rooibos tea and milk, I might have found my new favourite cocktail!
Raketa Rakia bar
After one last sleep in Bulgaria we stopped for a quick brunch at Sun and Moon and left for the airport.
Sun and Moon
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