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The Balkan Range and the Danubian Plain
The Iskar Gorge The Iskar Gorge is the most scenically impressive of the routes north. It`s also within easy enough reach of Sofia to be a popular day-trip destination, although only the slow patnicheski, or "local", trains (most of which run early in the morning and late in the afternoon) stop at the smaller settlements along the gorge Beware too that the gorge is almost totally devoid of tourist accommodation -Sofia and Vratsa are the most convenient places to stay, although the one-horse town of Mezdra at the gorge`s northern end does have a basic hotel -so you really have no choice but to make a fleeting visit. The most breathtaking stretches of the gorge, where the river is squeezed beneath soaring crags, lie between Gara Lakatnik and Lyutibrod; it`s feasible to stop off at one of the halts between these places, indulge in a spot of walking, and pick up another train later in the day. There aren`t any distinct footpaths along the valley bottom, but you can walk along stretches of the riverbank, rejoining the roadway above whenever the valley gets too narrow. Things begin to get interesting just beyond the town of Novi Iskar, 10km north of the capital, where the gorge burrows north into the Balkan massif, gradually becoming narrower and deeper, the road and railway competing for space above the river. Strewn with boulders and scored by gullies, it`s archetypal parti san country. There`s a monument near Batuliya village commemorating the 24 partisans who clashed with local police in May 1944, and a train halt called Tompsdn after Major Frank Thompson (brother of left-wing English historian and veteran CND campaigner E P Thompson) who fought and died with them A The Sofia-Varna route also skirts the Danubian Plain (Dunavska ravnina), sretching from the northern foothills of the Balkan Range down to the banks of the river, which forms a natural boundary with Romania. Despite the name it`s byno means uniformly flat, a rich agricultural area of rolling hills with no major attractions save for the River Danube itself. The citadel town of Vidin and the Central European ambience of Ruse will be the likely highlights of any trip along the river. Travelling from the Danube towards the Black Sea coast you`ll pass through the relatively unknown Dobrudzha, a hot, dusty region which lies at the southernmost limits of the Eurasian Steppe. Although short on specific sights, its wide-open skies nevertheless exert a certain fascination. THE WESTERN BALKAN RANGE Travelling between Sofia and the Danube takes you across the western spur of the Balkan Mountains, an area of forested highlands scattered with tortuous rock formations. Although not as high as the Rila or Pirin ranges to the south, the peaks of northwest Bulgaria present some of the country`s most rewarding walking and rambling areas. Practical maps of the area are, however, thin on the member of the British mission sent to observe the effectiveness of Bulgaria`s antifascist fighters (and evaluate their suitability to receive Allied aid), Thompson was fondly remembered by the postwar Bulgarian regime, and his uniform used to be exhibited in Sofia`s now defunct Museum of the Revolution. How Bulgaria`s post-1989 generation of historians chooses to deal with his legacy, and that of the partisan movement as a whole, remains to be seen. Around Gara Lakatnik The GARA LAKATNIK (Lakatnik Station) halt stands opposite a precipitous knuckle of rock that harbours two caves known as dupki or "dens". Temnata dupka is the larger of the two, extending for nearly 3km across four levels and including several lakes fed by a subterranean river. However, it`s doubtful that anyone will be on hand to offer tours to casual visitors. Gara Lakatnik also stands astride Bulgaria`s main east-west hiking route (the E5), which runs from the western Balkan range all the way to Cape Emine on the Black Sea coast. Bear in mind, however, that if you`re using Gara Lakatnik as a base for walking, the cafe and food store on the station platform are the only places to pick up food supplies. Assuming that you don`t want to tackle the whole lot at once, the westbound part of the trail offers the most convenient route up into the mountains. Just below the station, a well-marked (and initially asphalted) track follows the River Proboinitsa up a scenic side valley surrounded by mountains. At the end of the trail, about 10km away, stands the Proboinitsa chalet, the base for assaults on the 1785-metre-high Todorini Kukli, from which paths descend to the Petrohan Pass on the other side. South of Gara Lakatnik, a more serviceable road heads for the pastoral highland village of Lakatnik itself, 8km away, and beyond that, the Trastena chalet, again the start of numerous walking possibilities. This part of the Balkan Range also harbours two monasteries: Sedemte prestola (named after its 7 altars), 10km south by minor road from Eliseyna village, just beyond the mountain hamlet of Bovska Gabrovnitsa, and the more accessible Cherepish Monastery near the halt of the same name, midway between the villages of Zverino and Lyutibrod. Both date from the Second Kingdom, but Cherepish - with icons by Father Vitan of Tryavna and frescos by the Macedonian Iliev - is the more rewarding. The monastery is accessible from the Sofia-Mezdra road, although the turn off is difficult to spot; the only nearby landmark to look out for is the Han Cherna roadside cafe 100m to the north - it`s also the only source of food and drink in the area. If coming by train, alight at Cherepish halt, cross the rail tracks towards a large ochre seminary building, and bear left along an asphalt track until you reach a T-junction. The monastery is down the hill to the left. Founded in the fourteenth century, Cherepish was sacked by the Turks almost as soon as it was built, and most of the current build-ingss date from the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries. Some of the frescos in the monastery church are in desperate need of restoration, but the pictorial history of the New Testament on the right-hand side of the nave is particularly colourful. The intricate woodcarving of the iconostasis - with exquisitely tendered gryphons and ears of corn - also stands out. A nearby grotto known as Shishman`s Cave recalls Tsar Ivan Shishman, whose forces campaigned unsuccessfully in the area to stem the Ottoman advance. The Iskar Gorge ends with a final geological flourish nicknamed Ritlite or the Cart Rails": three parallel ribs of fissured rock up to 198m high which you`ll see to the west of Lyutibrod, a few miles before the road and rail track enter MEZDRA. A useful transport hub at the junction of the Sofia-Vidin and Sofia-. Pleven-Varna lines, Mezdra has little else to offer save for rooms at the Hotel Rodina in the town centre (0910/2445). Vratsa Approaching from the south, arrival in VRATSA is presaged by the steaming pipelines and storage tanks of a vast chemical plant, which does much to detract from the undoubted beauty of the town`s situation, standing at the base of a wall of mountains known as the Vrachanska planina. Vratsa`s valued collection of Thracian treasures is the main attraction for visitors, but the town also gives access to a beautiful rocky hinterland, starting with the Vratsata defile which ascends into the mountains just west of the town centre. Overlooking Vratsa to the south is Mt Okolchitsa, where Hristo Botev, one of the more romantic figures in Bulgaria`s struggle for liberation, met his death. An inspiring revolutionary leader as well as a poet known for his patriotic verses, Botev formed a cheta to lend assistance to the April Rising in 1876. Botev`s men marched south into the Balkan Mountains from Kozlodui on the Danube, but were constantly harried by Ottoman forces. After days of running battles, Botev finally perished along with the remnants of his cheta on Okolchitsa on June 2. Arrival and accommodation Vratsa`s train and bus stations stand together just east of the centre, from where the pedestrianized ribbon of bul. Nikolai Voivodov curves its way northwest, passing a vast open-air market on the way, to meet the main thoroughfare, bul. Hristo Botev. For accommodation, the 2-star, hundred-room Hotel Hemus (092/24150) is conveniently located on the central square, pl. Hristo Botev, while more frugal rooms can be found up in the hills which provide Vratsa with such a stunning backdrop. Dorm beds are available at the Alpiiskii dom, 2km east of town along ul. Vratitsa, at the entrance to the Vratsata gorge. TheTown From the stations, turn left into bul. Hristo Botev and you`ll pass a plaza built around the kula na meschiite, a seventeenth-century fortified tower. Such towers were built as family dwellings by local feudal lords who wanted to intimidate their exploited subjects with a suitable symbol of invincibility. Shortly afterwards ul Targovska breaks off to the left, a side street blessed with a picturesque collection of pastel-coloured nineteenth-century town houses. At the end of the street stands a monument to Sofronii Vrachanski, local church leader and key figure in the Bulgarian Renaissance. The Ethnographic Museum and complex Immediately behind the Vrachanski statue is the Ethnographic Museum (summer Tues-Sun 9am-lpm & 3-6pm; winter Tues-Fri 9am-noon & 2-5pm housed in a National Revival-period former girls` school, a fine half-timbered structure vaguely reminiscent of Tudor architecture. Inside is one of provincial Bulgaria`s best collections of folk costumes and crafts, strong on local marriage customs: exhibits include the enigmatic svatbeni bardeta or "wedding pitchers", twelve earthenware jugs hanging from a two-metre-long wooden pole. One entire floor is devoted to brass band instruments, imported from Central Europe by village ensembles at the turn of the century; while outside a pavilion displays nineteenth-century carriages and carts (and a particularly ornate bright-blue ceremonial sled) built by the local Orazov factory, Bulgaria`s leading coachmakers. Next door to the museum is an ethnographic complex: a clutch of National Revival-style houses grouped around the Vdznesenska (Ascension) church, which itself contains a display of icons from the Vratsa area. A couple of the houses are open to the public (same times as museum); one displays the work of local jewellers, while the other features exhibits on Vratsa`s silk industry. Silk was the region`s major source of income a century ago, when each family would keep a tree for silkworms in the yard - a practice continued still in a few outlying villages. Examples of Vratsa-made fabrics are on show, alongside fading English-language posters offering handy hints on how to tend the worms. The Historical Museum Back on bul. Hristo Botev, it`s a short stroll south to another seventeenth-century tower, the Kula na Kurt Pashovtsi, and another modern plaza, pl. Hristo Botev; holding the Hotel Hemus and the excellent Historical Museum (summer Tues-Sun 9am-lpm & 3-6pm; winter Tues-Fri 9am-noon & 2-5pm). Predictably, it harbours a "Botev Room" full of reminders of the warrior-poet`s fateful march into Ottoman territory, but the real delights lie downstairs in the archeological section. Hordes of Neolithic and Bronze Age idols, including well-endowed fertility figures, point to the long history of civilization in the Vratsa area. Pride of place, however, goes to Thracian finds, the most valuable of which come from Mogilanskata mogila, a large tumulus unearthed in 1965. Three tombs were found here, dating from the fourth century BC, the largest of which contained a chieftain accompanied by two young women, both of whom appear to have suffered violent deaths at the time of the burial - possibly consorts of the deceased (one of them was sufficiently bejewelled to be a princess) who were required to accompany him into the afterlife. Three horses, two of them harnessed to a ceremonial chariot, completed the burial party. The latter were provided with decorative horse armour, their silver buckles depicting swirling animals. The more elaborately dressed of the women sported a pair of exquisitely filigreed earrings and a golden laurel wreath of great delicacy, featuring eighty finely sculpted leaves grouped around little berries. Most distinctive of the treasures is a silver greave, or shin guard, belonging to the chieftain. The upper part of the greave bears the face of a warrior, gold inlay highlighting the tattoos worn proudly by the Thracian aristocracy - swirling floral patterns decorating the forehead, and lateral stripes covering the left side of the face. It`s thought that these artefacts, rather than being imports from the Hellenistic world, were the products of local gold- and silversmiths Around Vratsa: the Ledenika cave and Bozhiya most One popular beauty spot easily accessible from Vratsa is the Ledenika cave, 16km northwest of town at the end of a road that forks left out of the Vratsata gorge. The cave gets its name from the icicles that form here during the winter -leden means icy - and its largest chamber has been dubbed the "Great Temple", of the 23 species inhabiting the cave, ten are purely troglodyte. The cave can be reached by occasional local bus; otherwise it`s a three-hour walk from town Luckily there`s an eighty-bed hikers` chalet, the Hizha Ledenika (`092/24411), complete with restaurant, near the mouth of the cave. Another geological curiosity can be seen from the minor road heading north from town, just outside the village of Chiren. a rock tunnel about 25m wide, 20m high and 100m long, which locals call Bozhiya most - "God`s Bridge". Eating and drinking There`s little to choose between the numerous pavement cafes that line the central bul. Hristo Botev; more individual are the Starata Kdshta, housed in a National Revival-style building, and Nikolovchev Dvor, a modern patisserie, both on ul. Targovska. If you don`t fancy eating in the Hotel Hemus, Klub Atlantik, on the corner of ul. Botev and pl. Botev, is the town`s nicest restaurant with a pleasant outdoor garden in summer. There`s a disco, Dance Club Imperial, on pl Sumi just behind the market. Berkovitsa and the Petrohan Pass The road that heads northwest from Sofia, route 81, skirts round the western edges of the Balkan Range on the way to the mountain health resort of Berkovitsa. Few, if any, buses travel this way, so you`ll be dependent either on your own transport or the vagaries of hitching - remember that if you`re solely interested in visiting Berkovitsa itself, you can reach it from Vratsa, Montana or Vidin by bus, and by train from Boichinovtsi, a train junction on the Sofia-Vidin line. After about 65km the road begins to ascend the Petrohanski prohod or PETROHAN PASS, 1446m above sea level, which sits between Mt Zelena glava (literally "green-head") and the jagged Todorini Kukli. Deer, rabbits and roe deer reportedly abound here, and for the hardy souls who wish to stay, accommoodation can be found at the Petrohan campsite (June-Sept) and the Petrohan hizha (096/25251), which is rumoured to contain a disco. From the pass the road zigzags down into the valley of the northward-flowing Barziya, from where it`s a short twenty-kilometre ride to Berkovitsa. Berkovitsa Surrounded by orchards, raspberry plantations, rest homes and hills, BERKOVITSA is a strange combination- one part given over to its health resort that faces Mt Kom, where Bulgaria`s wrestlers and weightlifters train, the other to an old maze of narrow streets, high walls and anonymous-looking doorways. Many people visit Berkovitsa simply for the local strawberry wine (yagodovo vino), which is difficult to get hold of elsewhere in Bulgaria, but can be bought in town here or sampled at the state winery. Other wines, made from raspberries (malinovo), blackcurrants (kdpinovo), and a grape-and-blackcurrant mixture, are also produced in the area. Although favoured by city dwellers as a high-altitude retreat from the summer heat, Berkovitsa is a dozy place enlivened only by a couple of nineteenth-century sights lying between the modern town square and the River Berkovska. Hidden in a lush rose garden on ul. Cherkovna, the sunken Church of Sveta Bogoroditsa features icons by Dimitar and Zahari Zograf and a carved wooden iconostasis on which exquisitely wrought angels blow trumpets and dragons attack lions. Three blocks east on ul. Berkovska reka is the Ivan Vazov Museum (Mon-Fri 8am-noon & 2-5pm), occupying the house where Bulgaria`s "national writer" spent two years as the local magistrate. Having come here to die of tuberculosis, Vazov was so improved by the climate and peaceable environment that he made a complete recovery, going on to write Under the Yoke and die at the ripe old age of 71 It was here that Vazov conducted a mildly scandalous affair with a local Turkish girl called Zihra. Local legend maintains that she entered the house rolled up in a carpet or was lowered over the wall in a basket in order to avoid the prying eyes of gossip-mongers, although more prosaic accounts reveal that the couple co-habited quite openly. Introduced to Vazov by Ivan Stoyanov, a mutual friend who had a mania for converting Turks to Christianity, Zihra eventually went off to marry a Bulgarian army officer. The Ethnographic Museum (Mon-Fri 8am-noon & 2-5pm) just around the corner on ul. Poruchnik Grozhdanov harbours a display of local arts and crafts. If travelling towards Montana, as you leave town you`ll see the pile of stones known as the Gramada by the roadside. Immortalized by Vazov`s poem of the name, the Gramada was accumulated over the years as local people threw down rocks - accompanied by a muttered curse - to vent their resentment of Berkovitsa`s middle class, the chorbadzhii, and the Turks with whom they collaborated. Practicalities Berkovitsa`s train station is fifteen minutes` walk east of town at the end of ul. Atanas Kyorkchiev, while the bus station is on the eastern fringe of the town centre on ul. Brezi. You can stay at the Han Tobo, a small family-run place on ul. Nikolaevska (0953/2111); the friendly but basic Ucheben Tsentdr Ashiklar, ul. Ashiklar 16 (0953/3000); or the more old-style impersonal Hotel Mramor 3km west of town along ul. Mramor (accessible by bus every 30min from ul. Kiril i Metodii). There are two chalets (both called Kom) a four-hour struggle uphill to the southwest near the summit of Mt Shtarkovitsa, the base camp for assaults on the 2016-metre-high Mt Kom. The nearest campsites are at Petrohan or at Montana, 24km northeast on the main Sofia-Vidin road, and served by regular trains and buses from Berkovitsa. Best of several town-centre cafes is Krasteva Kashta, an atmospheric nine-teenth-century house on ul. Sheinovo; restaurants include Pri Dzhani on ul Todor Petrov, a bistro serving the local staple kachamak (a tasty maize porridge) and the rather grander Kompas, ul. Ivan Panov, which hosts discos at weekends, MONTANA Montana and around Bulgarian towns with a revolutionary tradition tend to look drably modern or prettily archaic, and MONTANA - largely rebuilt in concrete - belongs to the former category. Originally Kutlovitsa, the town was known as Mihailovgrad for much of the postwar period in memory of local revolutionary Hristo Mihailov, a leader of the Communist uprising of September 1923. Socialist historians always overestimated the importance of the revolt - a short-lived farce that never enjoyed popular support - but the way in which the right-wing Tsankov regime put the uprising down, massacring 30,000 Bulgarians within a couple of weeks, ensured that it was remembered as one of the most bloodily heroic episodes in Bulgarian history. After a local referendum in 1993 the town was renamed, ostensibly because a Roman settlement called Montana existed here in the first century AD Montana doesn`t really merit more than a fleeting visit, unless you`re using it as a base from which to venture to the monastery at Chiprovtsi, in which case the Hotel Zhitomir 096/29186), a block away from the train and bus stations on the southern fringes of the centre, provides beds. There`s a rudimentary campsite, the Chernila (April-Oct; 096/26955), 3km south of town on the Berkovitsa road, next to the Montana reservoir. A popular local beauty spot, the reservoir is a good place for enjoying a lakeside picnic or camping rough. If you`re planning on doing some walking in the Midzhur area, your best base is Belogradchik. Chiprovtsi and Midzhur Regular buses make the 25-kilometre journey from Montana to the carpet-making village of CHIPROVTSI, nestling beneath the highest mountains of the northeast, their lofty peaks marking the frontier between Bulgaria and Serbia Chiprovtsi was the centre of an uprising in 1688, put down with customary viciousness by the Ottoman authorities, who burned down the nearby Chiprovski Monastery as a token of their disapproval. About 6km out of town on the Montana road, the most recent incarnation of this little-visited foundation dates mostly from the early nineteenth century, a clump of lumpish off-white outbuildings surrounding a dainty monastery church. Much less visited, but worth a trip if you have your own transport, Lopushina Monastery, situated in one of the area`s prettiest valleys, the Dalgodelska ogosta, 10km east of Chiprovtsi. You`ll find the monastery just beyond the village of Georgi-Damyanovo, lurking in a grove of pine trees - a tranquil location that provided Ivan Vazov with the peace and quiet he needed to complete several chapters of Under the Yoke. The monastery church is particu larly noted for two icons by Samokov master Stanislav Dospevski, the Virgin at Child and Christ Pantokrator - both works showing an almost photograph realism. Twelve kilometres due west of Chiprovtsi is MIDZHUR, at 2168m the highe of a whole series of densely wooded hills that have only recently been mad accessible to hikers. For decades they were considered off limits because of th supposedly sensitive nature of the border with Yugoslavia, and there`s a corn sponding lack of chalets or tourist facilities in the region. If you do fancy exploit ing, the foothill villages of Gorni Lom and Chuprene, both lying midway between Chiprovtsi and Belogradchik, are the starting points for footpaths into the mountains. Nearest accommodation, however, is about 20km to the north in Belogradchik itself. BEL0GRADCHIK Belogradchik and around Lying in a bowl beneath the hills just east of the Serbian border, BELOGRADCHIK (literally "small white town") gives its name to Bulgaria`s most spectacular rock formations, the Belogradchishkite skali, which cover an area of 90 square kilometres to the west. The limestone rocks greatly impressed French traveller Adolph Blanqui in 1841, who described them as an "undreamt landscape" rising to heights of 200m in shades of scarlet, buff and grey, with shapes suggestive of "animals, ships or houses, Egyptian obelisks" and "enormous stalagmites". The towering rocks nearest the town form a natural fortress whose defensive potential has been exploited since ancient times. Begun by the Romans, continued by the Bulgars during the eighth century, and completed by the Turks a millennium later, the castle at Belogradchik used to command the eastern approaches to the Belogradchik Pass. Although no longer in use, the pass was for centuries the main trade route linking the lower Danube with the settlements of Serbia`s Morava Valley. In Ottoman times the citadel and its garrison served to intimidate and control the local populace, and hundreds of Bulgarian insurgents were held here after the failed uprising of 1850. One particularly unsavoury tale relates that many of the prisoners were slaughtered when the Ottomans forced them to pass through a low doorway, only to have their heads lopped off by swordsmen lurking on the other side. The Town and the rocks Ruddy pinnacles of rock are immediately visible on arrival, glowering over the town from the hilltop around which Belogradchik is draped. The town`s main street winds up towards the summit, passing a small art gallery with modest exhibitions of local work, a museum (Tues-Sun 9am-noon & 2-5pm) strong on `oca] folklore, and the almost derelict Huseyn Pasha mosque, its former glory recalled in the delicate green-and-purple abstract swirls adorning the main entrance. Before long you`ll reach the entrance of the citadel (daily 9am-5pm), nree levels of fortifications representing different periods of occupation. The lowest two levels are Ottoman: solid, utilitarian blocks of stone enlivened here and there by the occasional floral-patterned relief. A steep climb between two enormous pillars of rock leads to the highest and oldest level, occupied by the medieval Bulgarian stronghold. The rocks themselves provided the perfect forti fied enclosure, and apart from the tumbledown wall of a medieval reservoir there`s little man-made to see Enjoy instead the marvellous panorama of surrounding hills. Another way of approaching the rocks begins at the opposite end of the main street, opposite the Hotel Belogradchtshkite skali, where concrete steps lead down into a dry valley overlooked by some of the more spectacular rock formations. A path continues along the valley floor for several kilometres, providing views of a whole series of extravagantly weathered pillars - two of which are associated with misogynistic legends the Nun, who was supposedly turned into stone for becoming pregnant by a knight, and the Schoolgirl, who was likewise afflicted after she was deserted by her husband Practicalities Lying just off the main E79 between Montana and Vidin, Belogradchik is easily reached by bus from the latter. The town`s bus station lies immediately below the main street. Trains on the Sofia-Vidin line stop at Oreshets station 10km to the east, from where there are regular buses. You can stay at the 2-star Belogradchtshkite skah (0936/3151) on the main square, or the Madona campsite (May-Aug) at the southern end of town. The Magura Cave There are about three buses a day from Belogradchik to the village of RABISHA, a couple of kilometres short of the much-publicized Magura Cave (daily 9am-5pm) The cave was occupied by hunters as early as 2700 BC, traces of whom are now displayed in a small museum. It`s best known, though, for its rock paintings executed in bat-droppings, which depict a giraffe, hunting scenes and a fertility rite, with some of the other chambers - with names like the "Hall of the Poplar" and the "Hall of the Fallen Pine" - interesting for the stalactite and stalagmite formations that give them their names. Guides hang around at the entrance wait ing for a group of tourists to turn up before leading them on an informal tour of the caves; if you want to see the cave paintings, however, you may do best to tag along with a big pre-booked group. There`s a small mehana near the cave entrance but there`s no accommodation. THE DANUBIAN PLAIN The River Danube runs from the Black Forest to the Black Sea for about 3000km, about 480km of which form Bulgaria`s frontier with its northern neign bour, Romania. The shorelines possess different characters: the Bulgarian side i buttressed by steep bluffs and tabletop plateaus, while the opposite bank is low lying and riven by shallow lakes called baltas, which merge first with marshes then the Wallachian plain. Between the two lies a shoal of wooded islands that provide a haven for local birdlife, a population sustained by the river`s rich stocks offish. . In ancient times the Danube was one of Europe`s most important frontiers. a natural barrier separating the riches of southern Europe from the barbarian tribes to the north. The Macedonian kings tried to make the Danube the north ern boundary of their domains, with Alexander the Great campaigning against the Getae here in 335 BC, but their hold on the area was always superficial The Romans were the first to turn the Danube into a permanent, fortified line of defence, building a series of garrison towns and administrative centres along its length. By the second century, thriving civilian towns such as Ratiaria, Oescus, Njovae and Durostorum were beginning to emerge alongside the armed camps. By the fifth century, however, the frontier was being breached by raiders from the north, many of whom (including the sklaveni, ancestors of the Balkan slavs) increasingly chose to settle down south of the river once their plundering days were over. Justinian attempted to stem the tide in the sixth century, refortifying the old Roman sites and establishing new garrisons along the river, but Byzantine diplomacy subsequently concentrated on paying off the barbarians to keep them sweet rather than attempting to shut them out altogether With the decline of the lower Danube`s strategic importance the settlements along its banks began to decay, only to revive when the last of the Bulgarian kings, the Shishmanids, fought a delaying action against the advancing Turks from Danubian strongholds such as Nikopol and Vidin. The Ottomans themselves were great fortress builders, erecting the great eighteenth-century citadels of Ruse and Silistra in an attempt to strengthen the Danube frontier against the advance of Russian power During the nineteenth century, increased river transport brought the goods and culture of Central Europe down the valley, turning the towns along its banks into cosmopolitan outposts of Mitteleuropa. European fashions and styles often arrived here first before being transmitted to the rest of Bulgaria, turning towns such as Lom and Svishtov into unlikely centres of elegance and sophistication. With the development of the railways, however, the river trade went into decline, and nowadays most of Bulgaria`s Danubian towns are quiet, provincial places, focusing their attention not on the river itself, but on the bigger cities inland. The only real exceptions are Vidin, Silistra and most of all Ruse - an important cultural centre that commands the major road and train route to Bucharest and the north. Travelling from the Danube towards the coast you`ll pass through an extension of the Danubian Plain known as the Dobrudzha, a vast expanse of grain-producing flatland which extends from Silistra to the Black Sea. The region`s administrative centre, the former Ottoman market town of Dobrich, provides the only potential stop-off en route Travelling down the Danube Until 1992, when they were suspended because of lack of custom, the best way to travel the river used to be the summer hydrofoil services between Vidin and Ruse. It`s still worth keeping a look out for river transport, as services (perhaps under private ownership) may revive in the future; we`ve detailed locations of hydrofoil terminals in the text, just in case. Attempting to follow the course of the river by land is less straightforward. The road is poorly surfaced in parts, and skirts inland much of the way. Making your way downriver by bus is time-consuming and may involve a sequence of changes. although settlements along the river are linked by regular buses to inland cities like Montana, Pleven and Veliko Tarnovo, services between the Danube towns themselves are few and far between - perhaps limited to one or two a day. Look out, however, for posters advertising buses run by private companies - occasional express services linking Vidin and Ruse are beginning to fill the gap left by the hydrofoils. Vidin "One of those marvellous cities of eastern fairytale which, secure behind their fortress walls, is decorated with spires and cupolas and minarets piled one upon another in a fantastic medley of creeds, ages and styles." So VIDIN was rather fancifully described by Lovett Edwards in his book Danube Stream in 1941. Nowadays you`ll find that the truth is more prosaic: Vidin`s modern skyline leaves a lot to be desired, and although the great sweep of the fortress walls still dominates much of the riverfront, the spires and minarets characteristic of Edwards` day have largely gone, to be replaced by utilitarian housing projects. Ample reasons for visiting are, however, still provided by the showpiece medieval citadel of Baba Vida, presiding over riverside parklands on the northern edge of town. Some history Vidin`s potential as the guardhouse of the lower Danube was exploited by successive waves of Celts, Romans and Byzantines, but it was under the Bulgarian tsars and their Ottoman conquerors that the most frenzied fortress building took place. However, Vidin`s relative isolation from major power centres like Tarnovo and Constantinople made the place a breeding ground for semi-independent local kinglets, and the citadel they built was much coveted by neighbouring powers. In the fourteenth century it was the power base of Mihail Shishman, whom the nobles elected tsar rather than see Vidin secede from Bulgaria, and after 1371 it was the capital of an independent kingdom ruled by Mihail`s grand-nephew Ivan Stratsimir. Vidin fought a rearguard action against Ottoman expansion in the Balkans, grudgingly accepting Turkish suzerainty in the 1390s - only to throw it off again as soon as help emerged from the West in the shape of the Crusade of 1396. The city was recaptured by Sultan Bajazet`s army two years later. In the late eighteenth century Vidin was the capital of Osman Pazvantoglu, a local ruler who rebelled against the reforms of Sultan Selim III in 1792 Energetic, despotic and fond of inventing tortures, Pazvantoglu pillaged as far afield as Sofia in defiance of the sultan, and strengthened Vidin`s fortifications with the assistance of French engineers sent by Napoleon, who envisaged him as a potential lever for toppling the Ottoman Empire These days Vidin is comparatively quiet, but with the Romanian town of Calafat just across the river, and the Serbian border 30km northwest, the town still retains a little of its former cosmopolitan feel. Arrival and accommodation Most points of arrival lie in the modern centre a short distance from the main square, bus and train stations are a couple of blocks to the west, while the hydrofoil station is two blocks south, just off Todor Petrov, the main Sofia road. Cheapest of the town`s hotels is the Voennen Klub on ul. Baba Vida (094/ 25763), a friendly but rough-and-ready place situated in the centrally located army club, and the smaller family-run Zora, Lilo Toshev 51 (094/24685), in a drab residential district south of the train station. The town`s premier business hotel, the Rovno, ul. Tsar Aleksandar II 4 (094/24402), is currently undergoing repairs; a good alternative is the comfortable 2-star Bononia, pl. Bdin You can get dorm beds at the turisticheska spalnya (`=094/22813) further down ul. Tsar Aleksandar II, while campers can choose between the Nora site (May-Oct; 094/23830), which has bungalows, in a park on the western edge of town To get there, take bus #3 from outside the train station and alight just before the level-crossing. The Dunav (June-Aug), also with bungalows, lies 8km north of town on the river bank, just off the road to Koshava. The Town Vidin`s modern heart stands at the southern end of the fortified old town, based around a flagstoned central square which is dominated by customary examples of socialist urban planning: the high-rise style former headquarters of the Communist party vying for attention with the equally brutal modernism of the obshtinski sdvet, or town council building, next door. Somewhat less imposing are the structures lining the main downtown streets which radiate outwards from here - drab lumps of ochre and grey that reveal little of the town`s former glory. The only real interest in modern Vidin is the Archeological Museum (Mon-Fri 9am-noon & 1.30-5.30pm), housed in a pagoda-like nineteenth-century konak west of the main square at the end of ul. Targovska. The display begins with prehistoric bone and stone tools found in the Mirizlivka cave near the village of Oreshets, but most space is devoted to Roman-period finds from the regional centre of Ratiaria, founded by Trajan in about 107 AD near the modern village of Archar, 25km southeast of Vidin. A floor mosaic on which a stag is chased by a wild cat, and a fine second-century marble sculpture of a pensive Hercules toying with his club, reveal something of the sophistication and comfort of life in this otherwise rather provincial outpost. Sarcophagi and gravestones from Ratiaria`s necropolis litter the lawn outside. An adjoining section of the museum deals with the National Revival period, with particular reference to the local peasant uprising of 1850, centred on the towns of Gradets and Belogradchik. The old town On the northern side of the main square the borders of old Vidin are marked by the Stambul kapiya or Istanbul Gate, a stocky portal in the Turkish style Beyond it lies a pleasant turn-of-the-century residential district with an extensive riverside park to the east. On the edge of the park stands the Osman Pazvantoglu mosque, the only surviving mosque in the city - most of the others were knocked down in the 1970s and 1980s. To one side is the squat, domed kitabhane or Koranic library, currently pressed into service as an art gallery Immediately opposite is the modern Church of Sveti Nikolai, inside which Cyril, Methodius and other saints are rendered in colourful turn-of-the-century realist frescos, rather like illustrations in a children`s encyclopedia. More interesting is the Church of Sveti Panteleimon hidden round the back, an austere twelfth-century basilica made from heavy stone. From Sveti Nikolai, ul. Baba Vida hugs the park`s western flank, leading past an ensemble of sorry-looking buildings along the way: the whitewashed Starata poshta. or old post office, the peeling ochre plaster of the banya or town baths. and the shell of a derelict synagogue. Parallel to Baba Vida to the west is ul Knyaz Boris I, site of Pazvantoglu`s Krastata Kazarma (the "cross-shaped barracks"), now an ethnographic museum (usually Mon-Fri 9am-noon & 2-5pm; ring the bell and hope that a curator is around). Across the road, stranded behind railings in a patch of wasteland between two school playgrounds, is the seventeenth-century Church of Sveta Petka, an unassuming, sunken structure, traces of bright blue on the exterior giving some idea of its former appearance. From the northern end of the riverside park stone ramparts run alongside the shoreline for over a kilometre, largely overgrown and deserted, eventually curving inland to protect the Fortress of Baba Vida (Tues-Sun 8-11.30am & 2-5.30pm). Surrounded by huge walls and a deep moat, the fortress dates from the thirteenth century, although the brutal, blockhouse appearance of its turrets and towers owes more to the continuous improvements carried out by the Turks and the Habsburgs, who briefly occupied the town in the sixteenth century. Once inside, you can scramble around an extensive network of courtyards and ramparts, and survey the Danube from gun positions overlooking the river. Further stretches of wall extend well to the west of the citadel, and crumbling gates stand surrealistically amid the modern housing estates. Eating and drinking Daytime drinking and snack-nibbling is best in the cafes along ul. Targovska, or in the riverside park. The Lago di Garda restaurant built into the Stambul kapiya gate serves reasonable pizza and pasta, while the restaurant of the Hotel Bononia offers more conventional Bulgarian food to the accompaniment of live folk/pop bands. The Druzhba complex, on the corner of Knyaz Aleksandar Batenberg and Dunavska, houses a restaurant, a couple of bars and a disco. Other late-night drinking venues are Club Select, an atmospheric bar in the Stambul kapiya gate, and the pool-side nightclub of the Nora campsite. Down the Danube: from Vidin to Ruse The road to Ruse passes through a string of settlements which, despite an often dramatic history, lack the kind of attractions - save for the river itself - to warrant anything more than the briefest of halts. Much of archeological or historical interest has been carted off to be displayed in provincial capitals to the south, such as Pleven or Veliko Tarnovo, leaving perhaps only Lom and Svishtov with worth while museums. These two towns also offer hotel accommodation, a rare commodity along this stretch of the river. Vidin to Lom Thirty or so kilometres downriver from Vidin, the village of Archar was once the site of Ratiaria - the capital of Upper Moesia, from where the Emperor Trajan consolidated Roman rule over what`s now the Romanian side of the Danube -though there`s little to see beyond the relics now on show in Vidin`s Archeological Museum. A kilometre or two beyond the village of Dobri Dol look out for signs leading to Dobrodolski Monastery, home to the curious mid-nineteenth-century Church of Sveta Troitsa. A buff-coloured structure topped by an unusually tall drum, the exterior is unadorned save for a series of reliefs executed in a deliberately primitivist style, harking back to medieval, almost pre-Christian, Bulgarian models. A carving above the door shows a man fighting a dog-headed snake, flanked on either side by figures of the Archangel Mlichael and the builder of the church himself. Beyond here the road runs behind a wooded cliff over 100m high which continues in an unbroken line for about 20km. During the last century this stretch of the Danube shore was chosen by the Turks to accommodate the cherkezi or Circassians, Muslim refugees from the Caucasus who had been expelled from their homelands by the armies of Imperial Russia. Used by the Ottomans to keep the local Bulgarians under control, many of them fled after the Liberation to escape reprisals, although a few small communities remain. Many of those who stayed were assimilated into Bulgaria`s Turkish minority, with the result that surviving pockets of Circassians tend to be categorized (both by themselves and their Bulgarian neighbours) as Turks. Lom The first major settlement east of Vidin is LOM, a town renowned throughout Bulgaria for the watermelons grown in the surrounding fields. Citizens of Sofia used to come up to Lom in order to stock up on the local produce - the kind of fresh fruit of which urban dwellers were often deprived - thus leading the locals to dub the train link between Lom and the capital as the mazen vlak - the "gravy train". Slightly closer to Sofia by train than Vidin, Lom has traditionally rivalled its western neighbour as the capital`s port on the Danube. Although river trade with Central Europe has slackened due to the unwillingness of barge captains to sail through Serbia, Lom`s harbours are still frequented by the Ukrainian ships bringing coal and pig iron to feed the blast furnaces of Kremikovtsi, a vast steel mill on the outskirts of the capital. Aside from the industrial and port facilities hogging the east bank of the River Lom, the town amounts to little save for a single main street which drives its way south from the hydrofoil jetty. Traces of the Roman settlement of Almus lie to the east between tall apartment blocks, although there`s precious little to see amid the long, rubbish-strewn grass. The best of the remains - gravestones and statuary are kept in the Historical Museum (Mon-Fri 9am-noon & 2-5pm), one block west of the main street on Eremiya Balgarov. Most valuable of the museum`s exhibits is the collection of Bronze Age pottery unearthed in the riverside marshes north of Orsoya, a village to the west. The people who lived here belonged to the Urnfield culture, a civilization that spread itself across Central and Eastern Europe in the second millennium BC, deriving its name from the way in which the ashes of the dead were buried in richly patterned funerary urns. The museum displays examples of these alongside the votive offerings that usually accompanied them - predominantly clay figurines and animal-shaped vessels. Here too are artefacts relating to Lom`s modest cultural renaissance in the nineteenth century: in 1857 the town provided the venue for Bulgaria`s first-ever theatrical performance - a melodrama, The Misfortunes of Genevieve. The bus and train stations lie at the southern end of town, a couple of blocks east of the main street. Accommodation boils down to two options: the murky Hotel Dunav opposite the hydrofoil jetty, and the Chaika campsite just west. Kozlodui Forty kilometres east of Lom, KOZLODUI, the next place of any size, has a monument near the small harbour commemorating the "landing of 1876". On hearing of a rebellion against the Turks deep in the Balkan Mountains (in what subsequently became known as the April Rising), Hristo Botev assembled two hundred volunteers from the Bulgarian emigre community in Romania who boarded the Austrian steamer Radetzky disguised as market-gardeners hijacked the vessel and disembarked at Kozlodui under the banner "Liberty or Death". But by this time the Turks had already crushed the uprising, and on learning of Botev`s partisans, harried them through the mountains until their death near Vratsa. More recently Kozlodui has become notorious as the site of Bulgaria`s first and only nuclear power station, built with Soviet help in the 1970s. Throughout 1991 international observers became increasingly worried about the plant`s safety, not least because the Soviet technicians who used to run it were being replaced by insufficiently qualified Bulgarian staff. Western companies, funded by the European Union, have been involved in overhauling the plant, but it is still considered one of the most dangerous installations in the former Eastern bloc. It`s due to be decommissioned in 2020: in the meantime, beset by energy problems brought about by the sudden curtailment of cheap electricity supplies from the former Soviet Union, the Bulgarians have little choice but to keep Kozlodui going as best they can. Oryahovo Forty kilometres downriver from Kozlodui, ORYAHOVO slopes up a hillside overlooking a port used for the export of grain and grapes. In 1396, the Bulgarians holding Oryahovo`s fortress, Rachova, surrendered willingly to the Crusaders rather than fight for the Turks, but the French contingent in the crusading army pillaged and burned the town anyway, later justifying their action by claiming that they had had to take the town by force. Oryahovo is nowadays useful as a rail junction, with a couple of trains a day departing for Cherven Bryag on the Sofia-Pleven-Varna line. There`s also a ferry connecting Oryahovo to Bechet on the Romanian side of the river, although the lack of public transport links at the latter make this a bad place to enter Romania, unless you`re travelling by private car. At the confluence of the Iskar and the Danube beyond Baikal, the ruins of Roman Oescus can be found about 2km north of Gigen village. Excavations have uncovered ramparts, foundation walls, drains and large paving-slabs that give a fair idea of the layout of the ancient town, though the site`s rich yield ot statuary and mosaics is now displayed in Pleven`s history museum. Like other Danubian settlements, Oescus was razed by the Huns in the fifth century, rebuilt during the reign of Justinian and destroyed again by the Avars, so it`s hardly surprising that nothing remains of the great bridge over the Danube built for the Emperor Constantine. Reportedly 1160m long, it was abandoned after less than forty years. Nikopol NIKOPOL, further downstream, is chiefly known for its ruined fortress glowering from a crag. Founded in 629 by Emperor Heraclius I, Nikopolis was considered impregnable until its capture by the Turks in 1393, and the threat of further incursions by Sultan Bajazet frightened the Christian powers into organizing a crusade to retake the lower Danube. Feasting and pillaging their way south, the Crusaders treated the campaign as a sport, bringing "wines and festive provisions" instead of siege weapons. Unable to storm Nikopolis` 26 mighty towers, they instituted a blockade and began squabbling among themselves (the French, in particular, resented the fact that Sigismund of Hungary had been chosen by the pope to be supreme commander). Pigheadedness and disunity proved fatal on November 25, 1396, when Bajazet`s army appeared on the neighbouring plateau. Against Sigismund`s orders the French cavalry charged uphill after fleeing irregulars, only to be impaled on hidden stakes and then butchered by the Turkish cavalry. The Crusaders` defeat was shattering, and no further attempts were made to check Turkish expansion until the battle of Varna fifty years later, by which time the Ottomans were entrenched in the Balkans. Beyond Nikopol the road loops inland for the sixty-kilometre journey to the next major Danube port, Svishtov, although a small side road does descend to the riverfront at Belene, a small agricultural town. The town stands opposite Belene Island, the river`s biggest, now notorious in Bulgaria for being the site of one of the country`s biggest labour camps. Although political prisoners are no longer held here, Belene still functions as a high-security camp for dangerous criminals. The grim image is not helped by the fact that it is the intended site of Bulgaria`s second nuclear power station. Although begun in 1981, work on the power station was suspended in 1990 due to pressure from environmentalists. Since then, Bulgaria`s acute energy shortage has forced the government to adopt a much stronger pro-nuclear policy. Belene is due to come on-stream by 2020, replacing Kozlodui as the country`s main source of electricity. Not surprisingly, the citizens of Shvistov, immediately downriver, are fiercely opposed to the project More happily, Belene is a favoured nesting ground of spoonbills in May and June. Svishtov Occupying low hills above the River Danube, SVISHTOV is a long-established port and crafts town that grew just to the west of the former Roman city of Novae A common crossing point for boats, before the building of the bridge at Ruse downstream, Svishtov witnessed the arrival of the Russian liberators in 1877 and the invasion of Romania by German and Bulgarian forces in 1916. Bus, train and hydrofoil terminals are all in a drab riverside area just below, the bluff upon which Svishtov is built. Roads curl up into the hilltop town, passing a shabby overgrown park in the midst of which lurk remains of the medieval kale, or fortress. Just below the kale, the modern facade of the Church of Sveti Dimitar obscures a ramshackle seventeenth-century nave, brightened by some colourfully naive nineteenth-century frescos. Beyond lies the main square, where you`ll find most of the amenities Head right along Tsar Osvoboditel and right again into ul. Konstantinov to reach the Church of Sveta Troitsa. Just beyond is the former house of Aleko Konstantinov (daily 9am-noon & l-5pm), a satirist remembered for creating Bay Ganyu, an itinerant peddler of rose oil and rugs who remains one of the most popular characters in Bulgarian fiction. Konstantinov himself was never afraid to enter public controversies, and was gunned down in 1897 by political opponents A jar holding his heart, complete with ragged bullet hole, is the museum`s, most striking exhibit. By returning to Tsar Osvoboditel and following it further west, you`ll come across a large open-air market, behind which lies the Sveto uchilishte (daily 9am-noon & l-5pm). A rather lumpish stone construction dating from 1815, this was the country`s first secular school, and harbours some restored period classrooms. There`s little reason to stay in Svishtov, but if you need a hotel, head for the main square and the 2-star Hotel Dunav (0631/23621), which also has a good restaurant A number of cafes are scattered around the main square and along Tsar Osvoboditel. Ruse and around "Everything I experienced later in life had already happened in RUSE", wrote Elias Canetti in the autobiographical Tongue Set Free, remembering his child hood home as an invigorating city of different races and creeds, whose cosmopol itan culture placed it firmly in the orbit of Mitteleuropa. Although the ethnic mix of Canetti`s day has long since disappeared, travellers continue to be surprised by Ruse`s Central European elegance. Despite being blighted by the customary concrete-and-steel overlay provided by Bulgaria`s postwar urban planners, it`s still a city of peaceful residential streets, where Art Nouveau-inspired ornamentation drips from delicate turn-of-the-century houses. Ruse bears a similarity Bulgaria`s other Danubian towns in lacking a riverfront of any great beauty, but a scattering of historic sights and the relaxed feel of its downtown streets more than compensate. An important cultural centre with an animated cafe life, the city also plays host to one of the liveliest evening korsos in Bulgaria. Some history Apart from the fortress and a sprinkling of stately mosques (the former blown up by Marshal Kutuzov in the Russo-Turkish war of 1806-12, the latter demolished by post-Liberation Bulgarians), Ruse (Ruschuk to the Turks) was an unremarkable Ottoman provincial town until the enlightened governorship of Midhat Pasha (1864-68), who provided the town with schools, hospitals, factories and, most importantly, the British-financed Ruse-Varna rail line - Bulgaria`s first! Until the construction of the more direct Belgrade-Sofia-Istanbul line in the 1880s, travellers flooded through Ruse on their way from Central Europe to Constantinople. A "European quarter" grew up rapidly along the river bank, although the speed at which the whole place was constructed gave it a rather tacky, boom-town appearance. Trade received a further boost after the Liberation, and for many years Ruse had more inhabitants, consulates, factories, hotels and banks than Sofia. The city`s economic and cultural wealth owed a lot to the merchant families - including Germans, Greeks and Armenians - who settled here. Most numerous, however, were the Sephardic Jews (of whom Elias Canetti was one, born here in 1905),` descendants of those Jews given refuge in the Ottoman Empire after their expulsion from Spain in 1492, and speaking Ladino, a mixture of archaic Spanish and Portuguese with numerous borrowings from the Turkish and Hebrew tongues. Arrival, information and accommodation Trolleybuses #1, #11, #12 and #18 head up ul. Borisova from the train and bus stations to the main square, pl. Svoboda. The hydrofoil station is ten minutes downhill from here at the bottom of ul. Knyazhevska. Town plans and information - along with details of day trips in the area - are available from Dunav Tours (Mon-Fri 8am-noon & l-5.30pm) at Charkovna 1, just off the main square. The latter also handle private rooms in central locations, a much better bet than Ruse`s hotels, which tend to be either on the expensive side or uncomfortably poky. Top of the range is the 3-star Riga, Pridunavski 22 (22181); a mid-price alternative is the 2-star Dunav, pl. Svoboda 7 (226518). Less salubrious rooms without en-suite bathrooms can be had at the l-star Balkan, Han Krum 1 (270189); or at Pansion Atro, a basic but friendly small hotel opposite the train station at N. Obretenov 90 (226238;). There`s one hostel, the Hizha Prista (234167), 7km out of town of the Sofia road (bus #6 or #16 from bul. Nikolaevska) with more than two hundred beds, a restaurant and a cafe. Oherwise you could rent a chalet or camp at the mosquito-prone Kibarskakoliba (May-Oct.), 6 km west of town - take bus #6 or #16. The only other site in the vicinity is the Kladenetsa(mid-Aril to Oct.), 20 km south of town on the Ruse-Varna highway. The Town A spacious mixture of concrete and greenery bordered by open-air bookstalls and flower sellers, the central pl. Svoboda (Freedom Square) is watched over by one of Ruse`s trademarks, the 1908 liberation Monument a classical pillar surmounted by an allegorical figure of Liberty. Occupying the southwest side of the square is Ruse`s Drama Theatre, a once-magnificent neo-Renaissance pile currently lying gutted as a prelude to complete restoration. Skirting the northern side of the square is the city`s main commercial and social artery, ul. Aleksandrovska - venue for shopping, drinking and aimless strolling. There is a food market and diverse street traders along the road`s eastern stretches. North and south of pl. Svoboda lies a patchwork of residential streets lined with nine teenth-century bourgeois residences, nowadays divided up into apartments Hidden away among them is one reminder of Ruse`s cosmopolitan past, the former synagogue on pl. Ivan Vazov, which spent most of the postwar period as regional headquarters of Bulgaria`s equivalent of the lottery before being returned to the Jewish community. Along the riverfront Ulitsa Knyazhevska leads downhill from pi. Svoboda towards the hydrofoil station and the former merchants` quarter of town, an area of dust-laden stuccoed buildings where Elias Canetti`s family used to have a warehouse - just round the corner from Knyazhevska at Slavyanska 12. From here the cobbled ul. Aleksandar Stamboliiski runs along the waterfront - a singularly unattractive area save for a few Art-Nouveauish town houses, the odd stretch of riverside parkland, and a couple of House-Museums where the bulk of Ruse`s historic artefacts are kept. The Zahari Stoyanov Museum, Stamboliiski 15 (Tues-Sun 9am-noon & 2-5pm), commemorates the journalist, politician and author best remembered for Notes on the Bulgarian Uprisings, a record of the author`s own experiences during the 1870s. Inspired by the heroic suicide of Angel Kanchev, the young Stoyanov joined the revolutionary movement and toured Bulgaria helping to set up clandestine patriotic cells. By the time of the April Rising of 1876 he was attached to the rebel group commanded by Georgi Benkovski, a leader of the Rising in the Koprivshtitsa area . Stoyanov`s subsequent account served to immortalize both Benkovski and many other leading personalities of April 1876, and helped enshrine the Rising as the crucial event in the nation`s liberation. Aside from the books and manuscripts recalling Stoyanov`s work, the house is now home to Ruse`s ethnographic museum, featuring a dazzling array of ceremonial blouses embroidered by the unmarried girls of the region - an activity traditionally considered to be part of a young woman`s upbringing. Much of the house is also devoted to Panayot Hitov, the Sliven-born haidut and freedom fighter who retired to Ruse with his Serbian wife. Guerrilla life in the forests is remembered with items such as Hitov`s embroidered tobacco pouch, his secret money belt, and numerous antiquated pistols and shotguns. Zahari Stoyanov married the youngest daughter of Baba Tonka, whose museum (Tues 3-6pm,Wed-Sun 9am-noon & 3-6pm) is a few steps away at ul. Baba Tonka 40. A formidable matriarch, Baba (Granny) Tonka Obretenova was at the forefront of revolutionary activity in nineteenth-century Ruse, offering her home to the patriotic underground as a safe-house and arms dump, smuggling rifles through swamps, and leading Ruse`s women in an armed assault on the town prison. She raised her children as fervent patriots, her five sons taking part |n the April Rising. Assembled here are the effects of several great revolutionar-ies, including the skull of Stefan Karadzha, preserved as a memento mori by tonka after the illustrious haidut leader was executed in Ruse in 1868. Tonka`s house also displays photos and prints of the town as it looked in the twilight years of Ottoman rule, when the humble single-storey dwellings occupied by Bulgarians and Turks alike contrasted sharply with the symbols of Euopeanization hurriedly introduced by Midhat Pasha. Midhat`s crowning achievement, the establishment of the Ruse-Varna railway, is commemorated at the Transport Museum (daily 8am-noon & 2-5.30pm), which occupies the original station building at Bratya Obretenovi 13. the lines of historic locos and rolling stock parked outside include locomotive no 148, one of the initial set of steam engines built for the railway by a Manchester firm in 1866; and the sumptuous Sultaniye sleeping-carriage, used Empress Eugenie of France in 1869 when on her way southwards to open the Suez Canal. The Cathedral Church and the Pantheon A couple of blocks east of pl. Svoboda on ul. Gorazd is the Cathedral Church of Sveta Troitsa, dating from 1632 and twice rebuilt in successive centuries. The resulting building borrows liberally from Russian models, sporting a curious Baroque facade and a medieval Muscovite spire. Steps descend into an icon-rich subterranean nave, its stuccoed ceiling supported by trompe L`oeil marble-effect pillars crowned with Corinthian capitals. Further east across bul. Tsar Osvoboditel is Park na vazrozhdentsite (Park of the Men of the Revival), where the Ruse Pantheon, a mausoleum devoted to nineteenth-century revolutionary heroes, squats on a flagstoned plaza. |
Property in Bulgaria - Info on Bulgaria - The Regions - Balkan range & Danubian plain
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