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