Bulgaria with Noodles

I do not want to write about the situation with the Coronavirus. It is just awful. The evening news reminds me of the concert parties or entertainment troupes that were supposed to keep up morale during the Second World War. The initials were "ENSA", so the soldiers joked that it stood for "Every Night Something Awful". The snow has all gone now and maybe the Spring is thinking about coming back. It has not quite made up its mind, as the weather, though sunny, is still quite chilly and perhaps we are going to have another big freeze next week. Typical blooming boring Brit, always going on about the silly weather. You probably do not want to read about that, so let us get on with the much more important matter of sirniki. What are they? Well, sirniki are little cakes, made with lots of izvara , a sort of Bulgarian cottage cheese.  We had some of these yummy little cheesey things (well, quite a few, actually) for breakfast this morning, with some good ...

Plovdiv is the second-biggest city in Bulgaria and, even though we have been coming here for fifteen years, we had never been to Plovdiv. It takes about two hours to drive there from Sofia. The road is pleasantly scenic and there are a lot fewer dupki than usual. Blogger and our guide, Pavel Regular readers of my blog will know that I am a fan of the free Sofia walking tour. Well, the Plovdiv-based version is equally good. We met Pavel, our loquacious and very knowledgeable guide, outside the city hall, next to the rather splendid fountain. The tour took about two hours and it covered the central parts of the city: the main square, the street that follows the layout of the Roman stadium, the Kapana district and the Old Town. On the way, we heard some of the many stories about Milo’s statue and yes, we did whisper in his ear and rub his knee. As for architecture, there are plenty of charming and elegant buildings from the late 19 th and early 20 th centuries, but Plovdiv ...

Red peppers, mushrooms and pieces of sausage There is one bad memory that I have that is to do with China. This bad memory is to do with the Chinese Embassy here in Sofia. The first time I went to get our Z visas, more than five years ago, it was a disaster. I queued for ages, but they would not even let me into the building. Finally the guard sent me away and told me to come back on another day. Great! It took me about an hour and a half to get to the Chinese Embassy from our villa in Kalotina. Eventually I did manage to get inside, but I had to queue up at five o’clock in the morning. There were already seventeen people ahead of me in the queue and some of them had been there all night. Finally, I did get into the building, at about eleven o’clock, and the Chinese official who looked at all of my papers scrutinised every line of every document. When she had finished, she went through them all again.  The petchka in action I did, however, score one or two little point...

Walnuts, for a special Russian salad Our dining room in Kalotina is one of my favourite rooms in the house (or anywhere else). All around the walls are pictures, mementoes and souvenirs of our various wanderings and foreign peregrinations: Romania, Egypt, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Kenya and China. The dining table and the chairs are from England and we brought them with us in the van we hired and drove to Bulgaria, a few months after we bought the house. Originally the dining room was just going to be a rather dark and gloomy store room when Penka and her husband originally built the house, but we had part of a wall knocked down to connect the dining room to the kitchen. We also had a new window put in, giving us a view of the garden. These things made the dining room a much brighter and more interesting room. Beetroot and walnut salad The best thing about the dining room is, of course, my dear wife’s cooking. Here are a few photos of some recent highlights.  The c...

We are still in Veliko Tarnovo. I am not sure how much longer we will be here. Today the chimney man is supposed to be coming, following our unsuccessful attempts to light the woodburner and fumigate the apartment. Tryavna is a pretty town about 50km from VT. It has lots old-fashioned Bulgarian houses and it is a major tourist magnet. The beautiful old church is roofed with stone, with the obligatory candles, icons and lots of dark wood. The shape of church’s bell tower reminds me of something rather non-ecclesiastical.  The town square and the clock tower are impressive and it is very pleasant to wander along the cobblestoned streets and over the old stone bridge. The EU has helped to beautify lots of pretty Bulgarian towns and villages, but I am not so keen on the signs that they put up to tell everyone. We went to Tryavna a few days ago and the GPS did not do a good job. In fact, the GPS really led us in the wrong direction and some of the...

On the way to Stefan and Poly's villa. Poly and Stefan are Bulgarian friends of ours. They have a small villa along "the Drunks' Road", the old cobbled road that used to be the main highway between Sofia and Belgrade. It was my old friend Peter Adams that gave the name to this neglected country road. Perhaps he gave it this title because we were usually inebriated after visiting Stefan or maybe because this is just about the only road where you could drive "under the influence" and not be a danger to anyone, except perhaps to yourself.  At the market in Dimitrovgrad. I think that we must have known them for about thirteen or fourteen years, as we got to know them soon after we bought the villa in Kalotina. (Stefan used to be a diplomat and I have known him to carry on multiple and simultaneous conversations in English, French and Russian.) Last Friday, we went with them over the border into Serbia, to Dimitrovgrad, as it was the market day. ...

Another national treasure, shopska salad. The Rila Monastery is the No. 1 tourist hotspot in all of Bulgaria. It is a UNESCO world heritage site and, like quite a few places in Bulgaria, it has been almost completely destroyed several times. When it was last rebuilt, in 1833, one wonders whether the reconstruction was the result of the people’s pious devotion to the Christian faith or an expression of the resurgent Bulgarian national spirit that was leading to the country’s final liberation from the Turks. John and his dark beer Rila Monastery is about two hours’ drive south of Sofia, on the main road that leads from Sofia to Greece. As with most things that have been recently repaired in Bulgaria, EU funds have been used to upgrade the road, so driving the main highway south of Sofia is a pleasure. Then things get a bit narrow and twisty and dramatic once you leave the main road and turn off for Rila, heading up into the mountains. Lunch was at a very good (and reason...