Remains of the Dead

This blog is dedicated to the many body parts and remains we have seen on our journey.

In Hungary (Budapest) they seem to be obsessed with the right side of the body only- St Stephan's foot and St Mattias' right hand. These body parts were nicely displayed  in arnate boxes, but we were able to view the foot clearly.

In Romania, they prefer to impale their victims by taking a dull spear (covered in pork fat) and drive it through the body from the bottom to the top openings, and hang the bodies upside down. This method ensured a slow and painful death while draining the blood from the body. This is how they confirmed the person was dead! BTW, Vlad Tepes (Vlad the Impaler) learned this from the Turks, where he was held friendly hostage as a boy/young man. 

In Bulgaria, they seem to be more descrete about their body parts. While in the Bachkovo Monastery, our new buddy and Monk-in-Training, Vladimir, showed us the index finger of St. Georghes. This was nicely displayed in a mother of pearl inlay wooden 18c box (hard to verify its authenticity).

In Turkey (Ephesus) they displayed the remains of Trajan's foot as part of the Fountain of Trajan from 104AD. There was also a left footprint carved into the stone floor from 2nd century showing that the brothel was down on the left side across from the Library of Celsus.

Just needed to write about some body part additions from Istanbul. Today, I visited the Topkapi Palace which included  relics such as a 7th century footprint, hair, beard of the prophets and St John's hand and St. Joseph's Skull! Sadly, no pictures were allowed!

Inside this urn is the right hand of St Stephen.

This is the right foot of St Mattias' foot. Pretty gross.

Vlad The Impaler's outfit for impaling. 

This is the foot of Trajan. I know it is hard to tell but it is from 104AD.

Left Foot at Ephesus showing the Brothel is on the left side!

In Bucharest, they just flash the world with the male body part!

To be continued.. May see some body parts to add in Istanbul!

Our Trip to Izmir/Ephesus

So when we mentioned to local Turks that we were going to Ephesus for the day, they thought we were insane. I guess that is the equivalent of coming to NYC and taking the day trip to Niagara Falls. One of the reasons we choose Tayf Tours for our excursion is because they advertised we would not have to get up at the crack of dawn for our flight. Well, we had a 9am flight and p/u at hotel was 6:30am, putting us at the airport at 6:50am with nothing to do but stare at the Turkish toilets, women in burka, and the men on their iPhones. This is one of my pet peeves-as my husband will attest. On the positive side, I successfully used the handicap bathroom as the automatic door functionality was clearly explained in English. No need to moon the Turks, I reserved that act for the Germans 😉.

One of the odd (by American standards)  observations I made the first morning at the hotel breakfast, is how rarely the women speak. Even with a family where the boy is misbehaving, I don't see the mother disciplining him. Then when we walked through town (in Edirne), there was a tour bus disembarking passengers to view the historic bridge, and all 35 tourists were men-not one woman! On our free shuttle buses to/from the bus stations also only transported men. However, we went to a cafe in Old Town, and a young couple heard us speaking English, the mHe is a student in Chemical Engineering, and his girl friend was studying Food Engineering. She was clearly the brains behind the operation, but she was whispering into his ear what to say, and he was translating. To his credit, he was telling us it was her idea. 

Anyway, back to the journey to Ephesus...we sat in the Emergency row on Pegasus Air ✈️ and hoped I wouldn't need to operate the Emergency door as the double-sided velcro had worn off on the handle cover. Wasn't a comforting sign if the door was as worn as the Velcro 😳!

Not sure I can even begin to describe my experience at Ephesus in one blog. It would take probably a 30-slide presentation which I may be doing to the Westfield Historical Society next June, but I will try to hit the highlights.

 Ephesus (Efes in Turkish) is one of Turkey's best preserved ancient cities and arguably the world's finest surviving Greco-Roman classical cities (although Pompeii may rival it). Not merely rocks on the ground, but a cast-iron replica of what life was like between the 1000BC and until 431AD. Set in a strategic trade route, it first won fame as a cultural and religious crossroads. First shrines were built honoring Artemis, the ancient Goddess of Fertility, then St Paul arrived, caused a riot and then left. Finally, according to legend, St. John visited with the Virgin Mary, to fulfill a pledge to jesus to protect Mary, who lived out her last 16 years in Efes. The city survived Alexander the Great, the birth of Christianity, and the Byzantine Empire until falling into despair with the Arab raids and finally the silting of the harbour. At its height, it swelled to a population of over 500,000.

We were able to trace the fault lines of ancient civilizations during our tour, while taking in the spectacular landscape of ruined temples, amphitheaters, public latrines, the library, fountains, temple houses, roman bathes and brothels all along colonnaded streets.

You enter via marble portals of the Arcadian Way-the ancient Rodeo Drive-and walk from the top of town to the bottom. A truly historic day for me!!

The sun and sea at last!! It has been 4 days of rain and fog so we were delighted to see the sea! My first visit to Asia Minor!

This cat is not impressed with the temple.

View of the Library of Celsus looking down the Street of Curetes

Temple of Hadrian

Arcadian Way

Which way to the brothel? Straight ahead on the left (left foot). Female head is advertisement for a special woman!

View of Theater from Arcadian Way

Love the Theater where gladiators entertained the crowds! 

Blessed Virgin Mary's house and shrine

Lighting a candle for my late MIL, Dorothy, and late FIL, George!

The Wall of Prayer, similar to the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem, where people make the pilgrimage and leave notes for God.

Edrine Great Introduction to Turkey

After our +5 hour bus journey, I was excited to explore the relatively small city of Edrine. Beginning in the 7th century, when it served as a settlement for warmongering Thracian tribes, it was also know early on as a road linking Byzantium to the Roman Empire. It was a favored summer retreat for the Ottoman Dynasty for a mere 600 years. The city has been under Roman, Turk and Greek rule in its turbulent past, but today is known for the annual Kirkpinar Oil Wrestling Festival (I kid not!). Sadly, this takes place in early July and we missed it this year!

We only had time to visit the Selimeye Camil mosque (the largest in the world outside of Bagdad), the Eski Cami mosque (the oldest, mid 1400's), thé Great Synagogue (3rd largest in the world in 1906) and the mid-1400's bridges. 

The Great Mosque by Night

My first time in a mosque since Morocco in 1987!! Wow- it was exciting!

This place was immense and so peaceful! This is the painted ceiling dome, 30 meters in diameter.

Can you feel how large this place is?

Arab woman- selfie in the mosque-sacrilegious!! Don't tell Allah!

The Great Synagogue- completely renovated back to original 1890's. Designed by French architect Deprey.

Ceiling of Synagogue- just amazing!!

Entrance to Grwat Synagogue.

Oil Wrestling Capital of the World

The Great Bridge spanning the Tunca River was designed in 13c and erected in 1451-- that is older than when Colombus supposedly discovered America!!!

Veliko Tărnovo- A Tribute to the Bulgaria's Medieval Tsars

Note:

This is posted out of order as we visited Veliko Tărnovo (TV) before Plovdiv and crossing to Turkey, but the technology was lacking and couldn't post.

Veliko Tărnovo, located in central Bulgaria, has a picturesque hillside setting, fine architect and a wealth of historic sights. One of Bulgaria's most beautiful cities, tall narrow houses teeter on sheer cliffs that rise above the meandering Yantra River, and to the East are the ruins of the majestic fortress of Tsarevets. The only thing the town is missing is customer service! We found the hotel staff of the 4-star Yantra Hotel- extremely unhelpful. We found the Tourist Information Center also unhelpful- in fact they gave us misinformation and told us not to go on the 6pm Walking Free Walking tour. It was the only town on our travels (in fact in all of my travels going back to 1982!!) where we had to buy a city map (apparently they ran out of the free month over a month ago). Are they kidding? And they want tourists to come to their town.

Anyway, we did skip the Alernative Walking Tour because we had just arrived in town and my feet were really hurting form the Bucharest fiasco. Instead we had dinner in town, walked around and then decided to do the Historic Walking Tours the next day at 11am. Plami, our Walking Tour Guide, was a wealth of information of facts and history of VT. It was a warm morning but she took us on a +2 hour tour of the city including history lessons on the contributions Bulgaria has made in the world and their turbulent past and issue with always choosing the wrong side (Bulgaria choose to side with the Germans in both WWI and WWII, they claim due to the promise to be granted back land which was previously owned by them). Modern day, they have a joke that says if you want to know which country is going to loose a war, see which one is being backed by the Bulgarians!

Anyway, some interesting facts about VT.

For 300 years, it was the capital of Bulgaria during Roman times; considered the third Rome, after Rome and Constancenople. The city is cultured, developed and relaxed.

Then 500 years of Ottoman rule was the "dark" period, with forced conversions to Muslim.  From 1877/1878-Russian/Turkish war, where Russia assisted them in defeating the Turks, then followed by peace, increase in education, a renaissance for VT (let's not speak about the ethnic cleansing of forced exile of the remaining Turks).

Local flag is purple, the color of royalty. Purple is most expensive color to produce, because it comes from the sea snail. Sea snail comes from the Eastern Mediterranean Sea, very far and expensive to transport.

Earthquake of 1914 destroyed a lot of the town and churches. During the Ottoman rule, Churches were required to be built 1/2 in grown because all churches had to be built lower than the mosques.

Houses nestled in the Hills

The Monkey House, Architect designed house with a monkey to depict the wife of the owner

Funky Street Art was Abound in Veliko Tărnovo 

Who is that Witch Doctor scaring off the Evil Spirits?

Nice views from our hotel and the restaurant where we had lunch!

St Helena and Constantinople church. Helena was woman who influenced Constance to convert all Bulgarians to Christianity. 

Far from home!!

Another Great View of the City from Above

Bus Adventure from Plovdiv to Edirne, Turkey

It just amazes me that a bus driver of a private bus company crossing borders can speak on his cell phone while driving. We noticed this throughout Romania and Bulgaria. Especially taxi drivers, maneuvering small winding mountain passes and tunnels, will be surfing the net or speaking with their girlfriends at the same time!!

The weather was pretty crappy-steady, hard rain, foggy, no visibility, but we chose the upscaled bus company, and received airline-type service. First they served water and yummy Nutella-like cookies, then powdered Turkish coffee, which was surprisingly good, then water again. They allowed us a rest stop, but we were responsible to pay the .50 lev (.26 cents) fee for the Turkish toilet (with no toilet paper to go with). My seat mate (who was not Beth, as bus was booked), insisted on paying my Madame Pee Pee fee (I mentioned this was my first bus ride to Turkey and she took me under her wing). I repayed her generously by sharing my yummy cookies and almonds!

During our route, parts of the road around Plovdiv had washed out so we had to detour. Then we passed three bad car accidents.

As we approached the Turkish border,  there had to be a line up of over 300 trucks. Seemed like a 7 hour wait to me!! We dismounted the bus to go through the Romanian passport control, got back on, then dismounted again between the two countries for Duty Free shopping, then dismounted a third time for Turkish passport control. This was a 2-hour ordeal!! The only odd question Turkish passport control asked me was what the M. for my middle name stood for (really?).

So, we knew that Edrine was not an official stop but it was a town just over the border, and the bus stopped (so we thought) at a hotel near the town, where you could get a taxi to downtown Edrine. I had learned this from my TripAdvisor (TA) friend, Annie. She even provided the name of the rest stop and how much the taxi would cost. So imagine our surprise when the bus stopped in the middle of a 4-lane highway in the pouring rain, to let us off. Cars are literary going 80mph and visibility is very low. There are two guard rails we must jump over in the middle of the highway, with our rolling luggage! This was not what I had expected. We made it across the highway alive and entered the hotel area. We were in the restaurant section and no one spoke English. I saw a sign for the Reception on the 2nd floor, so I climbed the stairs but the hotel was completely deserted. No lights on and not a person on sight. Went back down to the bar and asked the Batista, who spoke little English, to call us a cab. He was hesitant to help us, plus we had no Turkish money (lira), and there was no ATM in sight. Just as he was dialing the phone, a taxi was dropping off another passenger and we asked him if he would take us to town. He wouldn't take Bulgarian leva, we had no Euros so settled on $10! Funny, the 5-hr trip from Plotdiv was only $17.00 and this 6km trip to town cost almost the same! 

We made it to Turkey, so more on that on the next blog!

My Cup of Coffee-served airline-style

First washed-out road

The Lorry Line Up at the Turkish Border- miles and miles!!!

Finally we arrive in Turkey! See the guard rails? That is what we had to cross further on down the road 😱! 

Rainy Days and Mondays always get me down, but not in Plovdiv!

Woke up this morning to hard rain and 58F. If I was home, would have rolled over and gone back to bed! However, it is our last morning in Plovdiv and monasteries awaited us. I was not going to deal with the local busses and time schedules and even Beth agreed. So Ditimar from the Family Hotel arranged a taxi driver (Boris) for the entire morning. For the equivalent of $17.30, Boris picked us up at the hotel, brought us to the bus station to buy our bus tickets to Istanbul, then took us to the Bachkovo Monastery, waited, then took us to Assen Monastery, then waited (not long here as you will see), then took us to a small food store to buy food for our trip. We couldn't find what we wanted so he took us to a brand new 60,000 square ft Carrefour supermarket (equivalent to a French Walmart) to buy some food. After almost 5 hours, he dropped us at the bus station. Wow, Boris rocks!

So a little about the magnificent Bachkoyo Monastery even in the pouring rain. Founded in 1083 by Georgian Brothers (Gregory & Abasius Bakursni), aristocrats in the Byzantine military, the monastery flourish for almost 400 years. Destroyed by the Turks in the 15th and 16th centuries, it has been restored in the early 1850's, and is now the 2nd largest monastery in Bulgaria.

During our visit of the Church of Sveta (St) Borgorodisa, while observing the amazing frescoes by Zaharias Zograf, we met Vladimir, a monk in training. He started to give us a little tour of the chapel with his 1st grade limited English. He showed us the 19thc iconostasis of the Virgin Mary. He took us to this special open courtyard (rarely viewed) to show us the famous Last Judgement fresco which depicts Turks (sinners) falling into the fires of hell.  He gave us his address and asked for us to send him postcards from America! He has never been. Then he saw my Westfield Leader and was very curious to read the small-town politics and information about 9/11. He told us he drank "rakiya"(Bulgarian Grappa) that day on 9/11 as he was so upset by the news! Then we stopped in the area of the monastery where they were manufacturing rakiya (Bulgarian grappa) and invited us in the try some. However it was only 11:45 and our taxi driver, Boris, was waiting for us.

Our next stop was the Assen Fortress, built by King Assen. It bragged of impressive views from the top, but sadly the road was closed due to the rain storms so we could only stop and take a quick photo. 

We are sad to leave Plovdiv, as we found the people to be really friendly and the city delightful. They are going to host an international event (theater-related) in 2019 and then the secret delightful town of Plovdiv will be more known globally!

View of Monastery in pouring rain 

Our new friend, Vladimir, Monk-in-Training

17c Iconostasis

Frescos by Zaharias Zograf, 1604

Outdoor Courtyard, a hen flapping his wings to get dry from the rain!

Beautiful view of the courtyard

Assen Fortress, road washed out due to rain so we couldn't go any further.

Welcome to Bulgaria!

We had a great taxi driver (Nicholai) take us to Veliko Tărnovo and across the Romanian/Bulgarian border. We were relieved to leave Bucharest, as we felt like wet rats.

Crossing the border was pretty uneventful except when we crossed into Bulgaria, the passport controller took our passports and asked us to pull over. Nicholai explained to us there is an exact science to this process: he knew the exact amount of time we needed to wait and then ask for them back. If he came too soon, they would yell, they are very busy and did not have the time to look at the passports. If he went too late to collect them, or they had to bring them back to the car, they would yell at him, why did he wait so long, they are very busy and don't have the time to bring our passports back! BTW, there was no one at the border crossing but us!!!

Nicholai asked us what we thought about the migrant worker situation. After stating he was NOT political (but was Trump for real?), he proceeded to give us his opinion about the Syrian migration problem. The entire situation was caused by the U.S. and we should make a separate state for them in Syria. It is our problem because we armed the rebel forces with guns to fight against The Islamic State, and caused this unsafe problem. We should keep them where they are, and create a separate state for them (similar to what was done for the Jews and Israeli in 1948).

Needless to say, we were happy when we arrived in Veliko Tărnovo so we could stop talking about politics and  Trump's bad hair style!

Bulgaria-Home of the Beautiful Handmade Lace, Crafts and Needlepoint

The bridge between Romania and Bulgaria at the Border

Border Crossing-Welcome to Bulgaria 

In Bulgaria-very difficult language