Wendel Travel Blog: 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