Bulgaria, and the defence of Christendom.

I had been a little concerned about both Bulgaria and Romania. To me they were complete unknowns. The guide books say especially to be wary of theft of property and vehicles, and the languages are totally alien. However, I need not have worried, as both countries were just fabulous apart from some communication problems and the fact that it was too hot for my temperate English body thermostat. The temperatures were consistently between 34 and 40 degrees and the most comfortable times were riding and creating my own breeze, in a cold shower, or on a couple of occasions in an air conditioned hotel room. The biggest problem, well hardly a problem as I was not in any sort of a rush, was the roads in both countries. Hardly any dual carriageways or motorways except a couple, and all the roads are in varying states of repair and frequently very tortuous. If I say that my average speed for the whole journey, and that includes the trip from Yorkshire to Slovenia, which averaged 84m.p.h., has been 36.5 m.p.h (about 58km for the foreigners!) you get some idea of how fast you can travel. To get an idea of what these countries history is like, they say that you can dig almost anywhere where there is a settlement, and very soon start digging out artefacts from two millennia of previous occupants. They have both been hot melting pots of civilisations from all points of the compass, both passing through and trading with, and overwhelming, subjecting and enslaving, for centuries

Helen of Troy by
Evelyn de Morgan

After staying at the beautiful Kriva Palanka monastery in Macedonia, I travelled towards Sofija, the capital of Bulgaria, although I had already decided that I did not want to go there but head out over the wonderfully named Plains of Thrace to Plovdiv. This is the area first mentioned by Homer in the Iliad, that was inhabited by the fierce Thracians, the tribes that fought alongside Troy against the Greeks when dear old Helen, a hot piece of stuff by all accounts and already married to Greek King Menelaus, “launched the thousand ships” after having a torrid encounter with the young and no doubt equally hot Trojan Prince, Paris. I say hot because I wonder myself how anybody finds the energy in this heat to have any sort of extended or very satisfying relationship? Anyway, back to the Thracians; nobody is actually quite sure from whence these people originated, but they were Indo-Europeans and very much feared in battle. On the plains of Thrace, are several burial mounds which are known to be of Thracian Kings. A couple have been dug up and certainly one is open to view, although the artefacts have gone to a museum in the capital. More about that later. The plains are vast open areas of mixed range, and 

farmland ,with mountains visible on the north and south horizons where the plains end. 

The Plain of Thrace

Goats on The Plain of Thrace

Here they breed sheep and goats tended in flocks by shepherds who live out with their flocks. 
They grow, sunflowers, maize and barley to make oil, feed their livestock and make beer, so it seems that they have a pretty balanced view of land husbandry.

Plovdiv street

Plovdiv house

Plovdiv is right in the middle of the Plains. It has been settled for centuries. When you come into the town it seems a mass of concrete towers and apartments in varying states of repair although reasonably clean. Across the river and around a few back streets, suddenly one passes a bit of wall and a sign pointing to the centre. This, on a motorbike is quite a challenge. The old town is built on a hill and the roads are paved with massive irregular smooth stones. It is a maze of small streets, some no wider than 8 or 10 feet. The houses are all about 200 to 250 years old and are typically built with an overhanging first floor.

I manoeuvred the bike up a small passage with a steep and sharp 

Plovdiv Houses

 ninety degree bend on these irregular stones and found a quite nice small hotel where I stayed for a couple of days. They had a garage underneath to park as well, which was a bonus. Plovdiv was quite difficult to explore as there was no local information centre and the tourist map from the hotel had names spelt in cryllic. As you climb the narrow streets, uncomfortable under foot because of the size of the boulder-like cobbles, there are many very quaint houses, some in excellent condition and some completely beyond any form of restoration. There just isn't the money to preserve these private properties. The great highlight was that at the top of the town suddenly, you come across an enormous and well restored Roman Amphitheatre, still used today for concerts and plays. The most extraordinary thing about it was that this had originally had a stage front

Plovdiv amphithetre

Top row curved
marble backrests

which had been used for plays and recitals and where the Roman high dignitaries would have sat when meeting the High representatives of the Thracian monarchy. Here also they watched gladiatorial spectacles in view of the riff-raff. It originally had a three storey pedacled stage and about a third of it had been restored 

In addition to the amphitheatre, on another hill close by was the remains of an ancient fortress, with pre-Roman beginnings, dating back to Thracian times. Not well preserved, and much of it covered in litter and graffiti, it is a popular place for people from the modern city to meet and stroll over the top in the evenings.

Ottoman merchant's house

Ancient hill fortress

Other delightful buildings include an Ottoman merchant's house which is truly beautiful with amazing frontage and shutters, and a very lovely monastery with frescoes on the outside porch.

Frescoes Plovdiv Monastery

I met some very pleasant French people here too, who, when they saw that I was alone at dinner, invited me to their table afterwards for coffee and drinks. Some people can be so kind and it is so much welcomed when travelling alone. Somewhat of a strain on my French though! There are many French visitors here and the Bulgarians are more likely to speak some French or German than any .Plovdiv was a nice place to take a couple  days out and actually do very little although I wrote the end of Ann's and my holiday bit here (although, that reminds me I still have some photos to load up for Montenegro and Albania which I'll do shortly).

Thracian kings'burial mound 

On leaving Plovdiv, in the centre of the Plains of Thrace, I headed north towards the mountains where I saw the aforementioned Kings' burial mounds. I went to visit the one that was open for visitors, but now it seems it is not, unless you can read Bulgarian and know where to ask for the caretaker to open it, There is a horrible concrete house built over the entrance, clearly being reasonably looked after as there is an air conditioning unit working to keep the tomb cool and dry. There is a car park for 

 couple of dozen cars , empty, overgrown grass around the path to the house and litter strewn around. So sadly I left and headed up the road towards Veliko Tarnovo. 


En route, I came across a town called Shipka, mostly because I noticed a huge gold onion tower on the hillside and went to see what it was. It turned out to be a church built as a memorial to soldiers of the Russian Army and Bulgarian Volunteer Army who died in a series of battles starting with the Defence of Shipka Pass, 

Shipka Memorial Church

the nearby mountain route northwards. This church has the plaques of all the names of the Russian and  soldiers who died in defence of the pass, and an ossuary underneath with the bones of 330 of them in a sacred chapel in 12 plain marble tombs. It is a stunning building and made me want to learn more about what had actually happened.

Inside the Memorial Church

It was difficult to ask to find out more about these battles, so I left Shipka and continued on the main road towards Veliko Tarnovo. Only 3 miles up the road however it was completely closed for re-surfacing and I was turned back to a diversion, which of course, I had not been able to read when I had approached Shipka. How very lucky this was! I was diverted up a small side road northwards which, it turned out, WAS the Shipka Pass, the original old road, before the one I had intended to travel had been built. Not only was this a splendid twisty ride up through the mountains, but it took me to the very spot of the battles and superb views and a fascinating history.

Russian UFO Monument

The twisty road was steep and good fun with somewhat cloudy views from the mountain as I ascended. I arrived after about an hour at a huge hairpin bend, overlooked by a large hill on which was built something that looked like an enormous flying saucer. This, it turns out, is a Soviet monument to the battles at Shipka Pass. It is now deserted, empty, and closed off from the public but remains a legacy of the soviet occupation of Bulgaria in recent times. A massive USSR style statue of two hands together at the roadside reflects the struggle of the two armies side by side in defeating the Turks and holding the pass in 1877.

Bikers unite, Shipka Pass

While I was paused here, a couple of lads turned up on an old Bulgarian registered motorcycle. They were Italians on holiday and had bought the bike here in order to tour for a couple of weeks. I thought I had a lot of stuff just for me, but they were riding two up and seemed loaded. How they were managing to get up and down the hills, I don't know, but they seemed to be managing, despite the fact that they were quite big guys and the bike was a Honda Dominator NX 650 Enduro from about the mid 90's. They both had ruscksacks, so there wasn't much room on board when they were both on and left towards Shipka.

Shipka Pass Memorial Tower

I continued up over the pass and about 5 miles further on, noticed what seemed like a castle tower at first glance. I turned left up a side road to go and look at it and was confronted by masses of steps and a tower monument on a hill surrounded by crosses on small adjacent hillocks. This was the summit of the pass and the place of the famous battle. At the base were carved some emotive scenes of the struggle, which I did not understand until I had visited the museum here. Inside the 7 floors of the monument was an exhibition of artefacts from the time, battle plans, uniforms, paintings and portraits. To the south of the monument was a rocky hill, known as the Eagles Nest, where the Bulgarian volunteers had held off the Ottoman army even using rocks torn from the mountain as their ammunition ran low. Inside the museum, also, was an early mounted Gatling type of machine gun. 

Holding off the Ottoman Army

The Memorial tomb

Early Russian Gatling-type
mounted gun.

"The Eagles Nest"

Bulgarian and Russian
soldiers in freezing winters

In the basement, visible from a circular landing on the first floor, was the actual memorial with a marble statue of a Russian and Bulgarian soldier on guard at the head of the tomb where more of the dead had been interred. It seems that, not only did this small detachment of men resist the taking of the pass, but they drove the Ottoman's back, and then held the pass during severe winters when many of them froze to death. Reinforcements from Russia and Bulgaria eventually followed the Ottoman 

They repelled them with rocks
when ammunition ran low

 Army south and drove them out of South East Europe back to Turkey, so restoring Christendom to this part of Europe. It was a very moving museum and a most interesting visit to a place, that, apart from a road closure I might have missed altogether to my great loss.

It seems ironic that 80 years later, the Russians with their communist ideology, occupied the very same areas,which they had previously fought to liberate for a nation's freedom and for Orthodox Christianity.


I left the Shipka Pass after a great ride, and a fascinating and quite moving discovery of this great struggle against the Ottoman oppression.  What would Europe have been like now had these courageous men not laid down their lives back then to re-establish freedom: but, then again, for centuries, Europe has been at war either within itself or from outside, and I suppose that this is one of the sad facts that makes us who we all are. Indeed, it is perhaps the most essential thing to have shaped our histories, our culture, our languages, our architecture and our mixed bloods, the very essentials of the depth of our civilisations.  I do think now however, that the South East and Central European countries have borne rather more than their fair share of outsider aggression though!  How fortunate we are in the UK to live on an island, not that that is now as much of a defence against occupation as it used to be!  An aeroplane ticket seems to be all you need now to come and occupy us!

Bulgaria will continue in the next blog.

Best wishes,  yours Doc.