Back to Arbanasi

This morning I took Kate and Andrew to Arbanasi, a place Kate had been wanting to go ever since I first mentioned it last autumn!

Our first port of call was the wonderful Church of the Nativity; just as I thought, they were absolutely blown away by the fabulous, colourful frescoes covering almost every inch of the walls, ceilings and wooden beams.

After this we moved on to Sveta Bogoroditsa Monastery, another place I'd been to with Emma and Mark two weeks before. As it was then, it was picturesque, quiet and peaceful, with no sign of movement from anywhere and the sound of birdsong in the warm, summery air. We wandered through the grounds first of all, with the monastery church on our left, then the living quarters on our right and a small cemetery opposite it and next to the church, mainly full of nuns' graves. On wandering back towards the church Kate got really excited because she heard and saw a cuckoo! She had never actually seen or heard a cuckoo before, despite having read about for many years and even studied them at one point at university.

Unlike in my last visit, inside the church both rooms were able to be looked round. All three of us bought candles from a lady at a desk in the larger room and lit them in the smaller.

On our way out from the monastery grounds we admired the Greek inscription above the entrance gate, paying testament to the fact that Greek was the official language in Arbanasi for several centuries.

A house museum was next: Konstantsalievata's House, which was the residence of one of Arbanasi's many rich merchant families during the Ottoman era. You could tell that this was a period of marauders' attacks on Arbanasi as the house has really thick walls and metal bars over the lower floor windows. It was really interesting inside, with much care and attention paid to interior decoration and furnishing, and the layout of the rooms. It even had a room specifically set aside for the mother and newborn baby (and if the re-enactment was accurate, they had the baby sleep in a little hammock strung over the raised, furnished platform that the mother slept on!) The expression in the doll's eyes was really quite disconcerting, even spooky.

Before we set off back to Veliko Tarnovo, we had lunch at Arbanashki Han, a restaurant I insisted we visit because I know how good it is. We feasted on tasty tarator, sautéed thinly-sliced potatoes, stuffed peppers and Bulgarian flattened meatballs.

Our walk back to VT was pleasant, surrounded by lush grass, bushes and trees and accompanied by the sound of a stream flowing next to us. At one point I pointed out the willow tree from which I'd seen old ladies cutting branches for use in celebrations on Palm Sunday the next day. As we drew nearer to VT we could see Tsarevets fortress in the distance, then the town itself.