A hike through the woods...

5/5/2007

Yesterday was quite the day. We set off shortly afternoon to visit a monastery on the side of a mountain. The lady at the hostel, not Yarina, told us to follow the street signs, so we did. Apparently it was only 6 km away. What she didn’t tell us was that we would be hiking on the side of the freeway. So we kept walking on the two lane road, cars honking at us and flashbacks of the bike trip through Tuscany popping into my mind.

We eventually found the turn off for the monastery and a little trail with the monastery’s name written in Cyrillic. We pressed on down the trail. Soon enough we came upon a complex of buildings and an old church. There were many bee boxes in the gated church grounds. Thinking this was the chapel of the monastery, I swung open the wrought iron gate and tip toed past the bees. Meanwhile Samantha and Liz laughed. Turns out this was not the church we were looking for, although there was a beautiful Madonna and Child gracing the portico of the chapel.

We decided to explore the complex further.

There was no movement or activity anywhere. We quietly crept through an arched entry into the confines of the complex. Still, no one to be seen. There were sings of life, however. The flower garden looked well tended to. There were bright white sheets hanging to dry from the balcony gently flapping in the breeze.

There was a brightly painted porch area with brilliant blue and gold portraits of biblical scenes. On the porch, there was a table draped with a table cloth and an empty glass pitcher. Surely someone must have been around. In the center of the courtyard was another chapel. We walked timidly towards the open door.

When we entered the chapel, we must have startled him. He may have been sleeping there since the chapel was built, many centuries ago. Long white hair and a beard disguised his face. He wore a faded black hat and robe. The priest greeted us in Bulgarian and we thanked him for his graciousness in English.

The church was absolutely beautiful. The old frescos or tempera paintings were mostly hidden with a thin black layer of soot from years of candles burning during celebrations and to represent people’s prayer intentions. There were a few places where the paintings had been cleaned. The colors were brilliant in those places. Bright blues and reds and greens. They all contrasted marvelously with gold leaf around each saint’s head.

As we left the chapel, I asked the old priest if we could take pictures and relied, “Molim” or please. We snapped a few photos and we were on our way.
Along the road on the way back we found a nice trail leading back to Veliko Tarnovo, so we decided this would be better than walking along the highway. The path was beautiful, taking us through the forest and then the rocky hill sides. Many trails split off along the way and each of them had the same red and white trail markings. Soon enough, we weren’t quite sure where we were. After some debate we decided to follow the sound of a shepherd up the hill. He was tending to his 7 dairy cows each with a different toned bell around her neck. We proceeded down the hill and we could finally see the town across the valley. There were many trails criss-crossing the floor between small garden plots. I decided I should ask a gardener the way to the town center. He confirmed that we were in fact on the right trail. Once we wound our way through the city’s twisted streets back to the center of town. We decided it was time to treat ourselves to a beer. Zagorka, a Bulgarian lager, was an excellent end to our adventure.