Basarbovo Rock Monastery
Basarbovo Rock Monastery
11.04.2015
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After Ivanovo, Basarbovo Monastery also proved to be a very interesting and picturesque destination. This monastery grounds were quite small, with a white cliff on the left hand side and a narrow road next to a river on the right. Hewn into the white cliff were four or five little chapels; one of them had colourful frescoes painted onto the outside wall.
We climbed the stone steps up the cliff into the main one. It was quite richly decorated, with some icons (including a marvellous one of St George & the Dragon) and a carved wooden iconostasis. We met two women from Kazakhstan - the first people from that country I've knowingly met.
Outside the entrance to this chapel was a space, also hewn out of the cliff face, containing benches around the sides and some candle stands. On the other side of this space there was a tiny office selling little religious icons, fridge magnets, candles, etc.
The other chapels, which we accessed by going outside the 'hallway' space, descending some of the cliff face steps and then going up again but to the right hand side, were more plain and were even smaller, but were still atmospheric. Each one of them had little icon cards leaning against a window, with small coins scattered in front of them on the stone windowsill. Two of the little chapels also had angels carved deeply into a wall.
Once we'd returned to ground level, we wandered round the grounds. These were small, but very green and lovely. The outside of the church looked like it had been restored very recently and there was building work going on inside, so we couldn't enter. Behind the church there were steps up onto the outer wall, so we climbed up and walked along it and round to some more hollows in the cliff. These hollows had some wooden planks laid down on the ground; some had lots of chalk dust on them.
As we explored, we heard the sound of bells once more - we looked down to see three black and white cows with cowbells, walking along the road with a cowherd.
Before we returned to Veliko Tarnovo, we had one more destination to come... the town of Ruse, which lies on the River Danube.
Posted by 3Traveller 13:03 Archived in Bulgaria Tagged art monastery sisters bulgaria icons explorations orthodox_church Comments (0)