Has anyone been to Bulgaria? Well, our traveling group didn’t cover much ground in Bulgaria but what I remember about this trip is how well we started it. Coming from more than a week’s travel around Greece, we drove from Thessalonika towards Bulgaria. Our introduction to Bulgaria was a visit to the impressive, awesome Rila Monastery. The pictures do not do justice to the lovely sights of Rila Monastery. Do please remember that I was then still using a non-digital camera. Just point and shoot, no reviews permitted. If one gets a double exposure, tough luck.
The Monastery of St. John of Rila
I am not into antiquities. I am not even a collector of anything. I never formed any attachment to material things and a piece of art for me, is really something best preserved and safekept in a museum. At best, I will forever keep a good photo of the place I visited to serve my memory right. It was very cold when we got to Rila Monastery. As in snowy cold. Must be about 3 inches of snow. Which added to the mystery of the place. There were not too many tourists. I’d say there was just our group , which is kind of big at over 30 pax, and perhaps a couple of small groups. I hardly knew where to start.
The Monastery of St. John of Rila is the most famous, if not the largest, Eastern Orthodox monastery in the whole of Bulgaria. This UNESCO World heritage site is a monument to faith, culture and architecture. Some writings cite St. John of Rila as having founded the monastery in the 10th century. Others say he lived in a cave not far from the monastery, and that his remains were safekept in the monastery. (Story goes that St. John or St. Ivan to the Bulgarians, couldn’t put up with the moral decline prevalent during his time, that he chose to live like a hermit in a cave dwelling. Now, if all of us are of the same character as St. John of Rila, I bet this world will run out of caves……..) Whatever, this complex is certainly worth a visit even if one were to skip all other sights in Bulgaria . It is not much to look at from the outside. The front wall looked even bleak.
But as one enters, you will be in awe and marvel at the sights with the high snow-capped mountains as backdrop. One goes through the church entrance and allow one’s self to be enthralled by all the frescoes, the icons, the mosaics which all add to the spirituality within the monastic grounds. This place is Bulgaria’s own renaissance. Now, I wish we could have spent more time here in Rila. But we were told this is just a stopover on our drive towards Sofia. A very pleasant stopover, indeed. Perhaps, next visit we should arrange staying at least a night in the monastery itself. Now, that would really require another visit!
From Rila to Sofia, the Capital of Bulgaria
But hold it………..from Rila, we drove towards the nation’s capital. It was very dark by the time we reached the capital. Hotel Intercontinental provided us with a very pleasant overnight stay. The hotel complex is huge, in stark contrast to the poverty around it. It was hard to enjoy a good meal in the rooftop restaurant and ignore the dilapidated one storey residential dwelling of Sofia’s urban poor. Nor to enjoy the many lanes of the bowling alleys in the basement of Hotel Intercontinental. Perhaps it was constructed as such, if only to discourage hotel guests from venturing out of the hotel compound and risk getting mugged. I wandered around the shops within the hotel complex and felt happy with the single purchase I made. A new cardigan! After dinner and a soak in the tub, I was ready to count sheep.
Sofia is very cosmopolitan. Truly a nation’s cultural, political and commercial capital. The Alexander Nevsky Cathedral with its golden dome is very lovely to look at. My untrained eye soaked in all that beauty while my fellow travelers got busy checking out the many stalls by the cathedral’s side. I can’t blame them. The hand-embroidered table linens and lacy materials were hard to resist. My roommate on this tour, Marylou, ended up with a bundle of table linens. I thought then that she must have a huge dining table. We also checked out Turkish Bashi Mosque, and admired the ancient Church of St. Georgi. There was also an impressive looking Opera and a few concert halls in the city. I thought then how difficult it must be to listen to the opera while one’s stomach is grumbling. My apologies, but it was hard to ignore the contrasts and the gap between the rich and the poor in Sofia. This is not new to me. I see it everyday back home in my own country. Very sad. On that sad note , I missed the opera tonight and had another good night’s sleep instead. Tomorrow, we move towards Bucharest, Romania!
lifeisacelebration 