![\"IMG_1418\"](\"http:\/\/www.raecrothers.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/IMG_1418.jpg\")
<\/a>Quite a nice view from my room. Soon as I opened my curtains, these guys waved at me and yelled good morning!<\/p><\/div>\n
Breakfast was an acceptable buffet. The coffee was out of those popular Nescafe dispensers and too sweet for my taste, but the food was good. I enjoyed a selection of meats, bread, jam, cheese, tomatoes, cucumbers, and olives, which I understand is a fairly typical Bulgarian breakfast.<\/p>\n
This is what parking looks like in these car unfriendly towns, people parking almost on top of each other. Both myself and the folks in the light grey car had said we weren’t leaving till noon, so that dark grey car was parked behind us.<\/p>\n
That reminds me that I forgot to recount my adventure getting out of my parking spot in Nessebar! It looked like I had a lot of room to get out, but it was all in the wrong places. To avoid a bollard, I would hit a taxi. To avoid the taxi, I would scrape the car on my passenger side. I had to do like I did with Miranda and mentally imagine all the manoeuvres I’d have to do with the car to get it out. I was reasonably confident I’d figured it out when a man knocked on my driver’s side window. All I got of what he said was “Not good.” He made some motions that rather mimicked how I had planned to get out and then he pointed from his eyes to me. It was clear that he was saying, “I’ll spot you.” Well, he did, and it was a great job! I slid out of that spot smoothly, with no extra steps, in a couple of minutes. On my own, I would have had to continually get out of the car to check my clearances. He was my hero of the day!<\/p>\n Back to this morning, the first thing I wanted to do was visit the medieval stronghold of Tsarevets<\/a>. It was the primary fortress of the Second Bulgarian Empire from 1185 to 1393. My hotel happened to be right by the entrance. I’m pretty sure I couldn’t have parked closer to it!<\/p>\n Looking down from the hotel parking lot.<\/p><\/div>\n Around the corner from the hotel, looking towards town, the fortress behind me. When I left with the car, I drove up from the left in this picture and turned left to where that car is in the middle of the picture.<\/p><\/div>\n Tsaravets fortress! The ticket booth is right before it. 6BGN to get in.<\/p>\n The man in pink is the ticket checker. He had his hands full a few hours later as I came out of the fortress!<\/p>\n My mood was giddiness. Remember that I’m a medieval history major! This would be my second opportunity to explore medieval ruins (first time was, of course, in Scotland).<\/p>\n The wooden bridge felt very spongy!<\/p>\n This maps shows just how massive the complex would have been. There is quite a lot left still to see!<\/p>\n This was one of the only English signs on the whole property. “You might encounter reptiles” AND medieval ruins? \ud83d\ude00<\/p>\n There was a very clear PA announcement in a couple of languages, including English, which recited the warnings and gave additional information. It sounded like it was narrated by a poor man’s Alan Rickman (RIP), especially when he said, “You may encounter reptiles,” in that flat bored sounding tone of Rickman’s. Made me laugh every time I heard it!<\/p>\n I liked how they hid the modern pipes in these old broken ones:<\/p>\n One of many bells on site.<\/p>\n All the signage was in Bulgarian, what I assume is Russian, and German. Between the Bulgarian and the German, I could get just the gist of what I was looking at. We know from the above sign that I’m at Baldwin’s tower and I’m pretty sure that the site was restored in 1933…<\/p>\n The ceilings inside the tower were low. The main floor reminded me a bit of my house in Malak Izvor.<\/p>\n “Monastery complex” ruins ahead.<\/p>\n Tsarevets was a huge city and had many churches, monasteries, and residential and commercial\u00a0buildings in addition to being a centre of administration and governance.<\/p>\n The complex is huge, but felt like it had a logical flow. I found myself climbing higher and higher without really noticing it.<\/p>\n This shows where the kings lived and governed.<\/p>\n These are the steps leading up to the church. I rounded the corner and heard qu\u00e9b\u00e9cois accents!<\/p>\n I said to the group of men that it was good to hear my accent again. They laughed. We did small talk for a minute. They are from the Outaouais, where I lived until 2008!<\/p>\n I came out of the church and heard some folks complaining in Spanish about the chill this morning (much appreciated), but that it was better than the unrelenting heat that was worse than anything they’d experienced in Hermosillo. Wait. What?! I had to intervene and asked if they were from Sonora. Yes! I said that I spent two winters in\u00a0Mexico. We chatted for a bit and I offered to take pictures. I sure didn’t expect to get in some good Spanish practice this morning, but there you have it!<\/p>\n I went around the back of the church hoping to be able to get even further up, but my hopes were dashed by the elevator being closed. \ud83d\ude41<\/p>\n No stairs either!<\/p>\n I was as far up as I could go, so I headed down, eager to find the “Cliff of Death” the loudspeaker announcer kept on warning us about!<\/p>\n There is a light show here at night. Must be spectacular!<\/p>\n And behold the Cliff of Death! This picture does not convey the sheer drop. Rumour has it there were executions carried out here.<\/p>\n Sumac, just like back in Quebec!<\/p>\n Something about a gate. *wry grin*<\/p>\n These stairs were fun in a long flowy skirt!<\/p>\n Well, that’s graphic! The point of the exhibits up here is for folks to touch them, so there were kids playing executioner and condemned!<\/p>\n I had heard shrieking on my way up, which I initially thought was the kids recreating the executions, but it was actually two gals who got their long hair caught in these very heavy helmets!<\/p>\n Back near the entrance was a catapult.<\/p>\n It was only as I left the complex, a full two hours after I arrived (I can’t believe how quickly time passed!) that I saw this lettering on the walls. Something about restoration in the ’70s, I believe.<\/p>\n I had just over an hour before checkout time when I’d had my fill of Tsarevets, so I decided to check out Veliko Tarnovo.<\/p>\n I would not want to be a bus driver in this town!<\/p>\n This ice cream brand has so many different names! No, I did not indulge…<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/a><\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a> <\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a> <\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n
![](\"http:\/\/www.raecrothers.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/IMG_1554.jpg\"){kind=link}