Sofia, Bulgaria Round Two

As you can see the maintenance isn't what I'd call spectacular. I think families are mostly responsible for maintaining these places and as generations pass people stop caring about the graves of their ancestors. It's a shame for this to happen, but I understand it. Perpetual-care cemeteries are normal in the U.S. but I expect they are quite expensive. Europe also has a much longer history of people dying, so there are laws and provisions in many places for how you remove remains from your family plot to make space for new dead people. It's interesting. There are also ossuaries, which I don't think we have in the U.S.


Benches and such are really quite normal in cemeteries. I just liked the way this one was situated.
What I found interesting was the organization of cremated remains. The structures you see below mimic the thrown-together style of the city center in a way. There were other structures that were better constructed and organized almost exactly like communist blocks of flats, or apartment complexes to us Americans.


Then there is this thing where the family puts up what I can only assume is a paper headstone. I've seen this in Prague too, but it always looked like it was a temporary solution while a more suitable and permanent headstone was being created. I don't know for sure. Seeing this tree with paper headstones pinned to it was pretty fascinating to me. It definitely appeared to be for more than just temporary use.


As I was leaving the graveyard, I decided to make my way to the bathroom. It was a long trip to the cemetery and I didn't want to have to deal with any police if an urgent need to micturate struck me while walking back to the center. That is when I really realized I was in far Eastern Europe because I saw this:


Now, this isn't the first toilet photo I've posted in my blog. I was pretty awestruck when I saw this. The farther east I traveled in Bulgaria the more of these I started to see. I'll leave everything else about this device up to you to answer with your imagination. Even if you don't read Cyrillic at all, it's not hard to figure out where the bathrooms are though, thank God.



You could buy a lot of things at the market besides produce. I saw a guy selling used light bulbs. At least I assume they were used, they certainly didn't appear to be new. This guy had about a thousand different kinds of honey. I saw a few stores just for honey throughout Sofia.


The great thing about this market is that it was actually crowded. Now, I really don't like crowds and try to avoid them if I can, but this was different. I also stayed alert and kept my hands on my stuff to make sure I kept it all. I would do the same thing at a crowded market in Prague or Barcelona too.


And what outdoor produce market would be complete without the potato man? Certainly not an Irish one, that is for sure. The potato man was well lit too, and he was one of the last stands in the market.


From the potato man's stand it is a very short walk to the Lions Bridge. As you look at this photo of the bridge you can see a few things, one of them is the majestic, raging Vladaya River. It's the broad, romantic river that runs through the city. I'm kidding, it's four feet wide and I swear I saw poop floating in it. This bridge it totally overkill for this river, even in pretty good flood stage.
The Lions Bridge is named for the four bronze lion statues on it and was built by a Czech architect. I think there is some other cool history about it, but I'm not sure. But you can see the older-than-the-metro-train trams crossing the bridge in this photo.


Below is another photo of the super-old trams. Trust me, traveling by tram in Sofia isn't really for people who don't know where they are going. There are no announcements as to which stop you are approaching or what the next stop is. It's actually positively intimidating if you don't read Cyrillic. I had to look at the tram map at the stop I was at, then use a mapping app to get the name of the place I wanted to go and think of it like a picture, then find the picture on the schedule and count how many stops away I was. Then, once I got on the tram I had to count the stops carefully. If you know where you're going, you can just look out the window and you'll know when to get off.
Yes, Sofia has a few modern trams too, but they don't go anywhere a tourist would want to go. Also in the photo is another vegetable market. This market is a lot closer to the book market and there are a lot of rouge sellers who don't want to pay for a table all around it. Some of them looked to have really good stuff.


So that's it. I promise no more posts about Bulgaria for a while. I'll wrap up by saying it was a wonderful place to visit. I think it's highly under rated. Of course I didn't see any mobsters or crazy violence like I've heard about, but I did see gypsies and stray dogs, so I think it all worked out.

Burgas

As you get further into the old town the architecture starts to become more evident. Many of the buildings are made of wood. I don't know why. Perhaps it is because the local population was more familiar with using it on boats. Maybe it was easier to find. Maybe it's difficult to make bricks near the sea. Other than those explanations i don't have much.
Buildings were made of brick and stone too. Those buildings looked to be newer than the old stone ones.


As you can see, there is a mix of wood and stone. I don't know why these houses are like this, but I'm also not an architect.


These houses look a little more modern. I think one of the oldest in tact building I saw was the Church of the Assumption of Mary from the fifteenth century.


From the street it looks a bit short. This is not the case. It is simple and wooden inside and much more inviting than an orthodox church. There were some ruins of churches in Sozopol, like the rest of Bulgaria. I think this might have been the warmest church I went into during my trip. Warm in terms of welcoming; the temperature was pleasant.
I walked down Pelican street mainly because my grandmother had an incredible fondness for pelicans. She named her house Villa Pelican if that tells you anything.


There I found this quaint little chapel. The name escapes me at the moment. I'm fairly certain it is written on the side of the building, but I don't read Bulgarian so I can not be sure.


Further down Pelican was this exquisite example of soviet-era automotive manufacturing, the Lada 4x4. I saw many of these in Sofia. For a short time I thought I kept seeing the same one. Many of the ones I saw had the same paint, dents and other marks. It was truly awe inspiring to see a production run of cars where the paint all faded the exact same way on all cars. I'm not sure the one above has moved much in the last year or so, but it is difficult to tell with a Lada.


Wandering down Pelican St. eventually lead me to the sea and some docks. The boats here looked a lot like the ones I saw on Crete. I'll make a Crete blog post soon. There were even some boats being repaired and maintained.



Keeping with what I expect is a long tradition of being a city of mariners there is a museum near the sea wall cliffs. It was closed, but there were some old mooring points there. Rusty iron and old anchors always make for fun photography.



I'm not sure if the black and white treatment helped or hurt this photo. I stuck it in anyway.
Then there is the obligatory church ruin. I forget what this church was, but I think it was from the fourth century or so. Bulgaria has a lot of churches from the fourth century.


Then I was on the bus back to Burgas. The trip between Burgas and Sozopol takes about 30 minutes and costs 5 Levas each way. That is something like 2.5 Euros. It's sooooo cheap.