Bulgaria with Noodles

As regular readers of my blog will know, I am a great fan of Bosch. They make some great kitchen appliances (washing machines, coffee grinders, toasters and so on). My wife and I have bought quite a few Bosch things. However, I am now a fan of Yantra Homes as well because this estate agency gave us some excellent service when we went to Veliko Tarnovo for our house-hunting expedition.  We saw quite a few properties and most of them we did not really like. Yes, they looked great in the photos, but they were not so wonderful when you actually went to the houses and saw how they really are.  The side of the house and you can see the massive wooden gate. There was, however, one splendid exception. There was one house that actually looked a lot better in real life than it does in the photos! The bad news? Yes, there is some. First of all, it is a bit further from Veliko Tarnovo than we had wanted (50 km or thereabouts) and, at 81,000 euros, it is costing u...

My dear Irisha and I went to Veliko Tarnovo, in order to do some house-hunting. Before I tell you of the result of our searches, I am going to say a little bit about some of the "also rans" that were in the race. First of all, I really liked the photos of "the grey house", as we called it, and at 72,000 euros it seemed to be a good buy. This property was beautifully renovated, but the rooms were rather darker and smaller than the photographs had suggested. (Did they use a wide-angle lens?)  I really liked the idea of having my own vineyard, but my dear wife was a lot less enthusiastic. Emen Canyon is an amazingly beautiful place, complete with rickety wooden bridges, fantastic views, caves full of bats and a waterfall.  The bungalow was quite close to the canyon, but again we felt that it was just too small. It looked quite big in the photos, of course. The "open plan" kitchen-cum-dining room was not what we wanted. The "mountain ho...

One of my favourite photos! Recently we have been spending quite a lot of time in our apartment in Veliko Tarnovo (VT), so I thought that I might perhaps give you a little tour. (This is also an excuse for me to include lots of old photos of VT.)  Tsaravets across the river and the old wooden bridge Our apartment is in Ulitsa Patriarch Evtimy, next to the old wooden bridge. This area of the city, Assenova, dates back to the 13th century and it is just across the River Yantra from Tsaravets, the huge castle that is up on the hill. From the wooden balcony and the dining room of o ur apartment, we have some great views of the wooden bridge and Tsaravets.  The dining room The dining room is probably my favourite room, but the sitting room is also nice. We bought the leather sofa and the chair from Malcom, who originally owned the apartment, and we said, "We will buy the apartment if you sell us the sofa too!" Breakfast on the balcony We were in VT because we ar...