Christine and Keith's Travels: Veliko Turnovo, Bulgaria, Wednesday June 11th

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All our resolve to go out in the cool of the morning was wasted, since we had to make phone calls while people in Australia were at work or awake. We spoke to Frey, who told us he had visited our house and “thanks for the apples,” and to Yonah, who replied with some grizzles to our very belated birthday wishes. We also made a phone call to alter our tickets to leave Casablanca on January 16^th next year, allowing a little time to visit in Sydney and Melbourne, to put the basics back in the house and to have a couple of days rest before I return to work on the 28^th.

A trip to the tourist office and some notes on our maps left us more able to get around. We took a taxi to the nearby village of Arbanassi, recommended because it retains many old houses and a traditional streetscape. Dropped we knew not where, but near a line up of tourist shops, we wandered over to buy a map. The disinterested teenager who sold it to us put a dot where we were, beside a fountain. An excursion load of primary school children swarmed over the entry to the park, making forays now and then to the milk bar to buy unhealthy snacks and drinks. We went in the other direction, following the many numbers that matched the key of sites. We took photos of the buildings there, thinking how unremarkable they were but who were we to say. After walking through a large park not on the map, and although being pleasantly diverted by a free range donkey, we thought it strange that some of the sites were invisible behind high walls or and others were non-existent. Perhaps tourism was not very developed here, as suggested by a total lack of signs. Puzzled, we were studying our map when a man offered help and showed us where we had really been at the start and why we had not seen anything of note. We started again.

This time we saw St Demetrius Church – behind a hedge in a paddock, and unusual in being a low oblong shaped building. Inside, when we peeped through the windows, it appeared to be and archaeological site.

Its bell sat in a simple structure a little way off. Next we came to particular old houses of note (or not) that are now restaurants and spa centres for bus tours and others, and eventually we gave up on the map and took an elderly lady’s advice for how to get to the Church of the Nativity and a museum house that we could visit. The streetscapes were very interesting, with every building having high or very high walls surrounding its yard. The walls were made of stone, with layers of wood between courses at 80 cm intervals, and little tiled pitched rooves on top. Some buildings backed onto the walls but others just acted as fortress fences. Enormous wooden gates kept callers at bay. Many houses had the first floor jutting out over the ground floor and lovely gardens and lawns around them. The thermal and other springs serviced many expensive resorts, and restaurants abounded to serve the wealthy customers. Bus transport between the village and Veliko Turnovo five kilometres away was infrequent, but most people were arriving in tour buses, taxis or their own cars.

Crafts people and their displays of lace, wood work and paintings lined the way to the actual sites and were more effective than the signage in indicating tourist spots. We went into the Konstantsaliev house, which was built in the 17^th Century, with a ground floor built of stone.

We only saw the upper storey, which had platforms taking up half the floor space in the reception, bedroom and craft rooms. The family all slept on mattresses on the floor of one room in summer and moved to the room behind the kitchen with a connecting fireplace in the winter.

At last we came to the Church of the Nativity, our goal for the whole of our rambling visit. It was another long, oblong building with buttresses on the sides that we weren’t sure were replacements of originals or just a modern measure to support the building. The earliest of the Arbanassi churches, it has different sections and was built in several stages. Likewise the paintings that cover every surface were added over time, with the first being completed in 1597. The paintings are amazing; fairly simple in style and technique, and with a strange perception of anatomy. Many religious topics are depicted, with a very big section on the day of judgement and the option of hell and its demons and tortures. Most of the saints are depicted as very grim faced people, and the other figures with faces like clones of each other. Adam and Eve appeared to be wearing very thick body stockings that hid everything, although Keith noticed a half naked lady wearing a topee, wandering through hell, who seemed very out of place. Actually she was a he, but depiction of anatomy in these paintings was generally very much in the early stages. Artistic limitations aside, it was absolutely fascinating to try to pick out the miracles, the zodiac wheel and all the other myriad of scenes and characters. No-one could be bored attending this church, although it would be possible for your mind to wander from the sermon.

A frustrating map reading exercise to nowhere followed, but in terms of being a beautiful village to be lost in, we would give it full points. It was well and truly lunch time when we emerged where we had begun, so we went over to the milk bar to buy some bread. It was closed and the only options were restaurants. No public transport was due until 5 pm and the 30+ temperature was putting us off a 5km walk. We were trapped in a range of expensive options like flies in a web. A taxi finally appeared so we waved frantically at our one chance out of there, and were soon back outside the museums at Velico Turnovo.

My first choice was the Renaissance and Constituent Assembly Museum, which was ‘open’ but had to be unlocked and the lights turned on to let us in. Downstairs there was an interesting display about the Bulgarian struggle for Independence, with an early uprising having been crushed and the later war with Russia against the Turks being successful in 1878. Upstairs we visited the Constituent Assembly Hall and read the names of the original delegates.

The constitution they devised was considered to be a progressive one, with liberal members winning points over their conservative colleagues. Memorabilia from the struggles was on display. I looked at the faces of the Independence Committee members – the sort of faces that you would see in the street now, ranging in age and type, and yet all with a passion that they put before their lives. We spent ages there, with an office worker from below forced to wait out our visit and very gracious about it.

Behind that museum, unsigned and out of sight, is the Prison Museum. The workers in the building we entered seemed surprised to see us but were able to find tickets, if not change, for us. They scrounged around in their purses for it. One lady took us and the key over to the building and let us in. It is here that the Turks kept the people who led the failed April revolt and tortured them, as well as other prisoners. Pictures of the heroes were in the entry room. It was still used as a prison in the 1950s. We entered a series of rooms which our non-English speaking guide explained to us with pantomime gestures. There was straw for bedding and a range of prison clothes made from very course fabric. Before we went downstairs, a tape of torture sounds and responses was turned on so that lashings, groans and screams filled the building as they once would have. It was so loud that it could probably be heard by anyone passing outside, but there was probably no risk of that. We saw solitary confinement cupboards where you could only stand up, rings to chain people to the walls, chains to chain hands to feet and an incredible range of poking, burning and lashing devices for torture, all with mimed demonstrations. Enough was enough, so we left.

In our museum trifecta we had the Archaeological museum to go; once again as the only visitors, but at least it didn’t have to be unlocked for us. The exhibitions covered all the eras from the Stone Age. The things of particular interest were the many finds from the Medieval era with jewellery, armour and daily items filling a large room.

We left the museum and wandered around near the district of artisans. It is always interesting to go beyond the suggestions on the tourist map because that is when you see what life for the residents of a place is really like. In contrast to the obvious current wealth in Arbanassi, we saw poor buildings in need of repair and people whose lives are not easy.

Up a flight of steps we landed in tourist land again, where the artisans practise old crafts in traditional ways and sell to tourists in current ways. Not intending to buy anything and feeling we had had enough, we cut our wandering short and headed home for tea; home cooked pasta.

Out of our window we could see the Art Gallery on the cliff above the river with the sculpture of the kings. They are forever regally riding their steeds in merry-go-round fashion across from their former home.