Signs

Diligently pitched into our modern era (on course for EU inclusion next year), signs of the new Bulgaria are about.

Bigger-than-Sam's-Club super stores on city's outskirts.
Swankier-than-our-own gas station shops stocking liquors and gourmet coffee.
Little girls dressing like Nicole Richie.
Japanese tourists.

To the mix add SUVs. Fortunately and like their western counterparts, they keep to urban areas while in the countryside, soviet-era cars continue do the heavy lifting.

And displaying.

(Out of shot but the mellon-purveyor-car-owner was shifting produce from the front seats to the back display as I walked up.)

C missing Sozopol, as is R

Treats on wooden sticks

The way Cracker Jacks might make me nostalgic, these sugar squirrels in an Etara shop window took R right back.

Which, in turn, made me sort of misty for a past I couldn't possibly have had, not having been raised behind the curtain that separated R's childhood from my own.

That his boy-years had featured treats like these - more mid-19th century than late 20th.

Cracker Jacks pale. (Madeleines come to mind.)

C

Bulgarian Bagpipes

A great deal of uncertainty, conflict and controversy surrounds the questions of the origins, evolution and distribution of bagpipes. At risk of throwing gasoline on the fire, the following opinions and speculations (with stress on those words) are offered here.
from: Hotpipes: Some notes on the history of the Bagpipe


Because he's a romantic, and possibly very old, soul, and because there's some tartan in the genes, my father has always had a thing for bagpipes.

Perhaps many do.

(I've seen bag-piping men amidst small-town-America parades, awkwardly abroad in kilts and knee-socks.)

With our hereditary link and gross-cultural-assumptions, we'd never questioned that a bagpipe was a Scottish thing. We imagined, I suppose, that the highland shepherds must have muddled into the making of the first with a stretch of hours, a goatskin, some pipes.

R entered our lives and set us straight.

Apparently, Bulgaria's charted a parallel claim - it's own very rich folk/traditional music heritage filled full of bagpipes.

Which would make some sense as their land supports a similar cast of shepherds, pastoral farmers and gypsies amongst whom (it's said) the instrument is much favored.

Dad remains a sceptic so for him, and the rest of the Scott-attributors, I post these photos as evidence.

C (adding fuel)

Bulgarian marketing

 

A wine display in the beachside cafe.

R reports the tag line is:

From my land.


C - bossed into wine-drinking 

Live and let

A favorite quote from Bulgraia Blue Guide's, James Pettifer:

"...Bulgarians are generally broad-minded, moderately hedonistic and tolerant."

He refers to family and relationships, but I'd say the Bulgarian live-let-live (have a rakia, lose the top, park on the highway if there's a phone call to take) spirit runs through more.

Walking the eastern sea-edge of Sozopol's old town one evening glanced down (pretty light on the beach) and spot these guys.

If they were aware of how vividly, symbolically, eve-affirmingly picaresque they were, they didn't let on.
They never looked up from beers or game.



C - toasting Bulgaria, though sadly not from a table amidst the evening-tide.

Bulgarian bagpipes

The way Cracker Jacks might make me nostalgic, these sugar squirrels in an Etara shop window took R right back.

Which, in turn, made me sort of misty for a past I couldn't possibly have had, not having been raised behind the curtain that separated R's childhood from my own.

That his boy-years had featured treats like these - more mid-19th century than late 20th.

Cracker Jacks pale. (Madeleines come to mind.)

C

Fish sausages, jams and lace

R, father Vladimir, and I returned from the Black Sea yesterday. R and I are very tan and a little fatter. We have only a Bulgarian day left.

We came home the long way - mapped so that I'd have extreme exposure to history and sites. First along the Black Sea coast north of Sozopol to Nesebar, then inland, across majestic gold fields that could be any stunningly bucolic land where Americans spend lots of money and compose books about living off the grid amongst the locals (by authors with last names starting with "M").



Whereas the Black Sea Coast is - at its most popular beaches - package tourist-to-sweaty-shoulder by package tourist (not so much Sozopol, but generally), the acres just inland are untouched and un-populated save for the shepherd, or the scant evidence of a farmer - a Vlada parked by a field. No pick-up trucks here, the eastern european tin/cardboard autos-of-old continue to boldly service the agricultural community. The Vlada-by-the-field motif is a quick location check - this is not Provence).

Cross these Thracian Plains then take a right and pass north through the Balkans (mountains), on a road built by the Bulgarian youth in the 50's. There's a monument to the teen-builders at a high pass: brave, brawny and stunningly patriotic.

Then you arrive at Arbanassi, where we spend our night in a farmhouse hotel...

But that's for another post, I should get this up while I still have battery.

And with so many Bulgarian stories to tell.

C in Sofia...

beaches and sand

Sozopol - view from our hotel towards Old Town.
(From favorite guide, conservative with compliments save for when writing up local liquors: "...a remarkable and evocative little town with some of the most attractive and best preserved buildings on the whole Black Sea Coast.")

And in case they get a mention no where else on this blog:
all hail Bulgarian PEACHES.
God smiled on the fruit trees of this country...

From sozopol

SOZOPOL

R insists he told me Sozopol but I'm quite sure i heard "Varna". No matter, we're in the former - so no dracula sitings and a much lovelier, charming-er and smaller Black Sea-side town to report from.

I'm on a clunky hotel computer with a faded keyboard, so can't get my own photos up yet, but leave reders with yesterday's favorite word.

stutinki

100 stutinki = 1 lev (bulgarian currency).

C - wishing the country was even cheaper so I got to say "stutinki" a lot more

Off

To where cars are made of cardboard and the bacteria's a national treasure.

And to where dear R, Maria and Vladimir wait.

More soon, possibly from a Balkan land (or possibly from JFK).

Love

C