She took us sight-seeing with superb explanations - all in Esperanto of course. You couldn't possibly have better info from a professional tour-guide.
We went through a house museum - to see how people used to live - that sort of thing. We had the place to ourselves - great. Sat outside in the garden and had rose jam and rose liqueur. And a lecture in Esperanto on how rose oil is produced - soon to feature on youtube.
Then onto (and into) the tomb of Seuthes. Famous for the paintings on the celing. All done about 2,500 years ago. The tomb was discovered during the war when the Bulgarians (allied with the Germans at the time) were digging fortifications. As Svoboda, our Esperantist, put it - even though they were being bombed by the Americans, the officers, being educated and cultured people, recognised that this was a great find and immediately called in the specialists to start work on preserving what had been found.
A quick lunch outside amongst grape vines... and finally the dish we'd been trying to try... what do they look like? Pigs' ears! Bit chewy, but definitely good with beer!
The we went back to Svoboda's place to say hello to Bobby, her dog, and to say saluton to one of her Esperanto students, a young 10 year old boy, who also gave us a couple of tunes on the accordian.
Our young accordianist being presented with his Tasmanian Esperanto cap...
Finally we packed up and headed to Shipka where there is a huge church built to commemorate help from Russia in defeating the Turks about 100 years ago.
Before Shipka there was yet another archeological site - this one less than 20 years old. (The discovery of it, not the contents) Another burial chamber, famous for a gold mask that was found there. Quite a good exhibit too. Ironic that the best buildings in town house the oldest things in town.
Actually the Thracians had a city near Kazanlak but it's now at the bottom of an artificial lake built for hydro power. There is however a plan to build a wall around the ancient city in the lake and pump out the water, thus allowing visitors to take boats over and walk around the city. Apparently there's been interest from Japan in the project but it will, I suspect, take a huge amount of money. If it goes ahead then I think everyone will hear of Kazanlak as whatever they do at the lake will be pretty spectacular.
Huge church at the tiny village at Shipka. The pic doesn't give an indication of scale. It's huge. There were priests inside too, chanting up a storm. Very atmospheric. When, yesterday, I read out the info that in Melnik there used to be 50 or so churches and I said that it would be a great place to come and just sit there for a week in peace and quiet with a book amongst the wine and churches... Sally quipped Yes, reading The God Delusion.
At the pass in Shipka, the Russian and Ukrainian forces held off the Turks so they were able to defeat them at some other city further north and thus change the course of the war... It's amazing what you learn if you know Esperanto!
At Shipka we met up with another Esperantist, so there were many hearty greetings and the good-byes took twice as long.
We'd spotted some huge monument on top of a mountain in the direction we had to travel, but when we got to the top we found that we were staring at some other, older monument and the one that we were keen to see, the one that looks like a huge UFO was on another mountain in the distance. The other monument in the distance was to communism... so maybe they like to ignore it.
This was the monument in the distance, with us standing on the wrong mountain top in from of some other monument. It looks eerie and huge. Have to see it up close next time.
The monument where we ended up. Big but not so original; there's a mini one of these in Hobart, I think.
It was a narrow, winding road through the mountains. We had to climb up over a kilometre. At one stage we came around a corner to be staring at a car trying to overtake, coming straight at us. Being dusk, it was a bit hard at first to know what was happening. And when we did there wasn't even time to scream. As Neil said, he didn't have time to hit the horn, he was just trying to slow down and give him some room. It seems that in Bulgaria, drivers immaginatively find a third lane down the middle. Anyhow, we were all rather stunned by the experience.
We were heading for Ruse, to return the car but decided it was too far. There didn't seem to be any hotels in the small towns we were passing but I did notice that we were coming up to a town in the Esperanto book - i.e. this town contains an Esperantist. I gave him a call and we were set to meet him.
Yes, there was a hotel in town, with the unlikely name of Hotel Esperanto! Well, the writing doesn't really seem to be too legible in the pic... you'll have to take my word for it that this really is Hotel Esperanto...
The two blokes that checked us in were pretty unlikely looking front desk personel to say the least. But the rooms were cheap enough and clean. Except the shower was a bit tricky. Too tricky for Sally anyhow, who couldn't get it off scalding, as the cold tap had been removed. But Neil realised that that was what the thermostat on the mini water heater was for.
Anyhow, we dropped off our luggage and headed off to the Esperanto club - conveniently located on the fourth floor of the hotel! There we had some sausages provided by the Esperantist's wife.
Esperanto class in Polski Trembesh.
We even took time out to lay a wreath... to a local poet I think. Yes, that really was a wreath from the local Esperanto club!
Turns out the Esperantist has some position in the local police force. Sounded like he's sherrif, judge and executioner. So when we went to tea with him, tables suddenly were cleared of people for us.
Food was great and we finished the night at this bloke's second house, sitting outside with some home-made wine and rakia at midnight, listening to his Bulgarian sheep-dog bark his head off.
What a day!
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