Mountain Paradise By The Walnut Trees Bansko

... kann ich natuerlich ich auch kaum, die Bulgaren haben kyrillisch erfunden). Habe aber den Bus nach Rila in die Berge gefunden und war dort dann am Spaetnachmittag (erneut 60km fuer 2,50 Euro). Habe mich im Kloster einquartiert (10 Euro fuer die Nacht, Duschen gibt es keine), wenn die Tagestouristen weg sind ist es ganz nett. Touristen gibt es naemlich sehr viele ...

... late and missed the gondola ride that would take me up to the mountain, so I was stuck in a city where half of it was empty (its major industry is skiing in the winter), having nothing to do. I walked the streets, used the hotel’s wifi to go to internets and relaxed. I ate a simple dinner and tried their "draft wine", I guess it means homemade wine without filtering, and it was cheap and nice.

... back and continued on to Rila Monastery. We arrived early afternoon and found that a room was available so decided to stay overnight at the Monastery. The Monastery is in a forested valley and is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It was first built in 927 and has 300 monk's cells in buildings surrounding the Nativity Church. It continues to be a working ...

So today we were venturing further afield and heading out to Rila a little village in the mountains about 2hrs drive SW from Sofia and to the famous monastery that was in the mountains a bit above the village. First though we had to find a taxi to get us to the bus station to catch the bus out there. Luckily the taxi was the easy bit and the lovely woman at the bus station spoke English and directed us to the correct bus even ...

... style food to pick from, so I tried chicken with grilled vegetables. Food was excellent as was the service. Walked back to the hotel, it was already 9.30pm so while Damyan & Erina retired to bed I worked on the travel blog. Morning now and I must say it was the best night's sleep I have had for awhile. Even though I got up at 7.00am I still had slept well. Internet connection was up and down as usual so I went downstairs to get ...

... Stray dogs and cats run the streets oblivious of what goes on around them. Mercedes Benz and BMWs race down the streets, followed by a selection of local cars and russian Ladas. Numerous horse and carts can also be seen used to bring in merchandise to sell by street side vendors. Even though this quaint town is far from the larger cities of Sofia, Plovdiv and Varna, the times of sovietism can still be seen here with the large bleak white cement housing blocks so familiar ...

... in Bansko, I went for dinner with two of the others. Tried the cold yogurt and cucumber soup that is on every menu, it wasn't bad but wasn't near as good as the cold soup that was in Latvia! Also had a shish or shish kebab to the rest of us, yummy stuff. Came back to the hotel and chilled on the patio for a couple beers again before heading in for an early night before the dreaded 6am start tomorrow.

... since supper was a long way away! Found a cafeteria style place and had some pork and sauerkraut stew, thumbs up! Wandered around Sophia a bit more and then went back to catch the bus. On our way to Bansko, we stopped at the Rila Monastery, the largest Eastern Orthodox Monastery in Bulgaria. It was an amazing place. Got the weirdest feeling when I was there, not good or bad, just weird. I bought a wooden painted Icon, love it but I will need to cut back on ...

... esting div**se town with Orthodox Christian Bulguarians, ethnic Bulgarians who are Muslim (sometimes called Pomacks,) and Roma (also called gypsies, or tsigini in Bulgarian.) So I've been in Belitsa for 2 months now, been obs**ving and asking questions like a good volunte**, trying to figure out what exactly is the situation h**e, what people think of minorities and how diff**ent groups int**act. I really hope to do some work in this area in the future, probably with my ...

... a pretty serious acusation. So after we talked she went and found Stefka, and they both came to talk to us, and Stefka basically didn't know anything about this and said the class was fine and interesting. So Galia also took back everything she said about me being a bad teacher, which should have been unrelated to the other incident but i guess she got it all mixed up in her head. I give her credit for apogolizing, but it was a waste emotionally and timewise becuase we ...