Outside the Cities

We drove outside Varna on our second day there and stumbled upon a monastery. We decided to visit, thinking it'd be a collection of buildings. Needless to say, it wasn't. This first picture is a bit of mural that was taken off the monastery wall during its rediscovery.

The place is called Aladzha; it's north of Varna and south of Golden Sands, about a mile from the coast. You can see it's all wild around it from this picture. In fact, it's in the middle of a nature reserve.

And here is the monastery itself. Yep, it was carved into the hillside in the 13th and 14th centuries. Despite my fear of heights, I went all the way to the top.

This was one of the monastery's bigger chambers - the refectory. Yes, the ceiling's that low and yes, it's open to the air.

And here's a picture out from about halfway up the monastery. Really pretty parkland surrounds it and it'd be a pleasant place for a picnic. Unfortunately, my companion did not take a picture of the scary stairs up the side of the hill, so I can't show you how brave I was.

BAPHA Spells Varna

We were in Varna, and yes, it's spelled that way in Cyrillic, Tuesday and Wednesday. Here are some pictures from Tuesday. It was chilly and cloudy, so, since it's a seaside resort, it wasn't as happy a place to be as I'm sure it is in the summer. This first picture is of the McDonald's. Every major Bulgarian city has at least two, I've observed.

Like Sofia, Varna has a lot of public sculpture. This piece is on the sea side of a large public walkway. You can see the nice way the road is laid out.

This is the bravest ship in the Bulgarian navy - it actually won a battle. In 1912. They are very proud of it.

A lot of Varna's architecture is definitely mid to late nineteenth-century, like this building. I just liked the look of it.

Here's a picture of the sea from the rather pathetic public beach. There's more beach that looks better up and down the coast, but the public bathing area's building has just been really neglected. It needs help. You can see how gray the sky is and how rough the sea is.

Here's another shot of the public walking areas. This is a plaza about a quarter mile from the picture of the sculpture. One thing about all the towns we visited is that there is a shopping district that's walled off to traffic. It's nice to just stroll down the avenue.

Progress for Philipp

I made some progress while traveling on Philipp's heart. It's -much- bigger than the first one I made, so it's going slower.

Sofia Fabric Stash

Just off of Vitosha Boulevard and west from the Ministry of Justice, there's a quartet of fabric stores and even a yarn shop. I found them! Actually, I didn't know they were there, but they're only a couple of blocks from Hotel Niky, so we found them on one of our walks. These pictures are of what I bought.

The green lace was by far the most expensive fabric, so I only got half a meter. It's really pretty and has lots of motifs. The shiny cream has a metallic jacquard woven into it, and the gray has cut out floral patterns. I just fell in love with it. All are coming home with me!

I still need to take a picture of my yarn shop finds. She wasn't open until Saturday, after I'd taken these photos.

The Tortured Turtle

Our hotel in Sofia, Hotel Niky, had an attached restaurant/beer garden. It's pictured here. On our last night in Sofia, we decided to take it easy and eat there. It was Palm Sunday evening and the place was crowded with kids and families. Children were running all over the place, and it's a garden with water and ... a turtle.

If cats have nine lives, this turtle had dozens. The poor thing was petrified with fear the whole time we were there, and with good reason. The children were barely avoiding it as they played in the area. Once, a child almost fell, knee onto the turtle's back. Poor turtle!

The pictures were taken the following morning at breakfast, so it looks empty. Turtle was still intact and in basically the same position. The food there was good and inexpensive, like almost everywhere in Sofia. Most places, you can walk out with full meals for under fifteen euros. We only paid more at one overpriced Greek restaurant.

Checkerboard Blackwork

The designs on this panel remind me of a checkerboard. I've made progress this week, but there's still a lot to go. Hopefully I'll work on it some this week. I'm sooooo behind on these stitchalongs.

Another Sofia Day

These pictures are all from Saturday in Sofia. It was another gorgeous day and we did a lot of walking again. This top picture is of the old Turkish baths building. It's in really bad shape and is being renovated, so you can't go inside. This site is an ancient baths and mineral springs site, dating back to Roman times.

This is St. Nedalya church, right next to the Sheraton. We never went inside, but when we walked by it on Sunday it was really crowded.

Sofia herself, supposedly. It's a modern statue and sits in a crossroads across from Tzum. To me, she's ugly, but well... she's the city's symbol.

And here is the oldest church in Sofia, dating back to the 4th century. It's surrounded by the Sheraton and the Presidential residence, oddly enough. The excavations around it are from the old Roman-era village that surrounded it.