A bonkers church, the rose valley, and a pile of dead jackals

When walking the spaniels at home on the moors above the house, it is extremely rare to meet someone who warns us to be careful because he has left two dead jackals for the buzzards further along the track. However, that's exactly what happened this morning when we walked around the lake south of the city of Stara Zagora where we had spent the night.The gentleman in question was a wildlife photographer who told us about the lake and the birds that frequented it, including black storks and marsh harriers, both of which we had seen. We didn't enquire where he had found the dead jackals but we passed them within a few yards of the hide he had constructed. He also told us that he had lived in Edinburgh, hence his command of English. 

Florence by the lake

This encounter has been typical of our time in Bulgaria where we found people to be friendly and welcoming. We had awoken the previous morning in the car park by the model village in Veliko Tarnovo and taken the pups for a walk up into the nearby woods where we could admire the limestone escarpments that surround the town. Then it was back to the van for the Rugby World Cup Final. The 4G held out until 20 minutes before the end of the game, by which time it was clear that it was all over for England. We set off south towards the town of Gabrovo before the road began to climb in a series of hairpin bends, to the summit of the Balkans the mountain range, that cuts Bulgaria in two. 


Normally we enjoy mountain roads but, as we approached the summit, we ran into a dense bank of cloud which cut visibility down to a few yards. Neri was driving and the piles of fallen leaves by the roadside were not only slippery, but, in the fashion of Bulgarian roads, could have been hiding potholes or a deep drain. By the time we reached the Shipka Memorial at the summit. 1,329 metres up, we couldn't see a thing, and it got worse when Google maps turned us off to a minor road which had more potholes and tarmac. We decided this wasn't the best way to go and turned back onto the main road and the hairpin descent to the Valley of Roses below. 

The thick cloud finally cleared, in time for us to see a man waving us down. It turned out a small truck had gone off the road and was causing something of an obstruction. We were much impressed by the way so many passers by had stopped their cars to act as traffic controllers. Eventually we reached the bottom of the pass and found our overnight spot in a screened lay by on a minor road. On the way we passed a gigantic statue of Dimitar Blagoev, one of the big cheeses in the Bulgarian Communist Party. Bulgaria is dotted with monuments and statues commemorating various notables

The water flow was a little slow

The cloud had cleared the next morning and Neri found a track through the nearby woods where we were able to let the spaniels run off the leads. The lay by had a supply of fresh water running out of a pipe, a common sight in Bulgarian mountain regions. However, the hot autumn had cut the flow to a trickle, so we decided that we would forego filling up, on the basis it would take several hours.

We headed instead to the village of Shipka and its amazing church. It was built at the end of the 19th century, but in a 17th century style, to commemorate the various battles in the Shipka Pass. A combined Russian and Bulgarian force had fought off the army of the Ottoman Empire to keep the pass, seen as a vital route to Constantinople, free of Turkish domination. We both decided that the church was one of the most beautiful we had ever seen. although we had a taster of it in Veliko Tarnovo where it was one of the features in the model village. Outside I could not resist buying a jar of local honey, something I have a passion for.
                                                                

The model

The real thing

                                                            
We moved a short distance down the road to the tomb of Seuthes III, who was the king of Thrace at the end of the 3rd century BC. The valley has more than 1500 tombs from this period but this is one of the best preserved. The tomb itself has been given an impressive modern entrance, from which leads a narrow stone corridor to the burial chamber. Seuthes was believed to have founded the city of Seuthopolis around 325 BC. The ruins were discovered during the construction of a reservoir in 1948 but the Communist government of the time gave archaeologists just six years to excavate the ruins before insisting the flooding of the valley went ahead.

Our onward journey took us south through the Rose Valley where the flowers have been cultivated for centuries. In fact, Bulgaria produces more than half the world's total tonnage of rose oil, which is produced in local distilleries. We paused briefly in the town of Kazanlak to visit a Lidl and top up with some essentials before continuing on our journey south to the lake where we spent the night.

A rather large Virgin

Our walk with the spaniels presented a bigger problem than dead jackals, namely prickly burrs which were everywhere around the lake. On our return to the van we spent some considerable time removing them from spaniel fur, nearly 20 in Max's tail alone. It was, therefore, somewhat later than usual when we set off again. We paused in the town of Dimitrovgrad to do our weekly shop before moving on to Haskovo, to swing by a 32 metre high statue of the Virgin Mary which, according to the Guinness Book of Records, is the highest monument to the mother of Jesus in the world. Tonight finds us back in the mountains, perched by a narrow road 627 metres up in the Rhodope range which forms the boundary with Greece. If all goes to plan, this is our last night in Bulgaria. Tomorrow, we should be entering Greece, where we plan to be until after the New Year.