March 12, 2017
I had arranged for a driver from the hotel in Blagoevgrad to take me up to Rila Monastery, the most famous in Bulgaria. While I would normally take the bus, this would have left me at the Monastery for 6 hours and resulted in my arrival at Dobrinishte rather late in the day. The driver's name was Stoyan. He did not speak much English, but after a few tries, we found we had a bit of French in common. He used the rectangular vent in his car as an ad- hoc map to point out different places in Bulgaria (which is roughly rectangular in shape). I pointed to where Gyueshevo would be, and he was surprised I had even heard of it. He also said he had trouble pronouncing it, as I did when buying a rail ticket yesterday. We passed through the town in which Stoyan lived, named Barakoova, pronounced "like Barak Obama" he said.
The Monastery is located high in The mountains up a long twisty road, with some waterfalls tumbling off the hills. The Monastery itself was quite nice. In the center there is a stone tower (what might be called a redoubt in military terms). Stoyan said the tower was for "anti-Turk" fighting (1). There was a lot of a very vibrant blue color in many of the frescoes. The color reminded me of Voronet blue, named after one of the painted monasteries of Southern Bukovina in Romania.
Rila Monastery
Monastery Entrance.
We went out the far side of the Monastery where there was old house where that made мекици (may-KEET-see), which is basically fried dough. There was a group of students from Blagoevgrad there with their teachers visiting the Monastery (and eating fried dough). They asked to take a group picture with the foreigner (me). One of the students told me he has a cousin in Boston. When I asked a teacher to take a picture with my phone, one of her teenage students had to help work my phone (some things are the same everywhere). As we passed through gates to the Monastery on the way back to the car, I noted that the ambiance got quieter and calmer as soon as we passed into the Monastery.
Where they make the fried dough
As we returned to Blagoevgrad, Stoyan told me that Blagoev (after whom the town is named) was one of the founders of the modern Bulgarian nation. After a quick snack at the Blagoevgrad bus station (I was pleased I was able to sound out the Cyrilic name of what was basically grilled cheese) I caught the early afternoon bus to Bansko.
There was no taxi at the Bansko bus station (I had about 5 more miles to go to Dobrinishte), so I made my way up to the ski slopes, expecting more people there. There is a ski lift (and ski trail) right from the center of town to the slopes. I found a taxi to take me the last few miles to Dobrinishte.
Bansko
At Dobrinishte, I walked up to an orange-domed church on the hill outside of town that I had seen on the way to town. As it happens, the church was brand new and had not yet been finished inside.
New Church outside Dobrinishte
Dobrinshte is a spa town where people would come to "take the waters" back in the day (and still do). I decided to partake and went to the Alpha spa. There were three outdoors pools. One was so cold, I think the water was still snow earlier in the day (I dunked twice very quickly). There was a Bulgarian brother and sister that were goading each other to get in. The second pool was probably about 85 degrees (where I spent more time). The final spot was like a hot tub, except fed by thermal mineral water. There is something quite refreshing about a good soak in warm mineral water.
Poster advertising the spa
(1) Bulgaria was ruled by the Ottoman Empire (invariably called "the Turks" by the local inhabitants) for almost 500 years from the late 1300s to 1878.
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