Life for most of us is full of steep stairs to go up and later, shaky stairs to totter down; and very early in the history of stairs must have come the invention of bannisters.
Louis Kronenberger
Bulgaria is hilly and mountainous. The cities were built on hills and access to tourist sites involved climbing up (and down) many stairs, often without bannisters. Good balance is essential, especially on rainy days, when stone steps can be slippery. I don't remember which cities in Bulgaria had the most stairs. Plovdiv comes in as a close second after Veliko Tarnevo.
The photo below is of an endless stairway, also with no handrails. It took forever to get down. There were times I had to go down sideways.
The amphitheater in Plovdiv had some really steep stairs. This particular set had handrails, a modern innovation. The amphitheater is used for concerts and performances during the summer.
Check out this manhole cover. It contains the coat of arms of the city of Plovdiv and to me it's a work of art. The motto translates to: "Ancient and Eternal." I you look close enough you can see the seven hills. Walking on cobblestones in the Old Town was brutal after a while. Even with supportive sneakers it was hard of my knees.
There were street cats everywhere. I don't know if people owned them but they were used to being around humans (unfortunately I don't have the photo of the cat who sat up and begged for food at an outdoor restaurant in Varna. That kitty got a little too close.)
If you want to skip to the dancing start at 1:45. What I like about this video is that a woman leads the dance (Pravo Horo), one of the most popular dances in Bulgaria.
Bulgarians are enthusiastic about their folklore (music and dance); it is a big source of pride and patriotism for them. After being oppressed by the Turks for 500 years, I can understand why. Since many young Bulgarians (and a few older ones) speak English) they chatted with me when I told them of my interest in folklore and we had some lively conversations (more on this in a future post). They were particularly impressed when I told them I was familiar with many of the dances.
In Bulgaria, especially in Sofia, there are underpasses under the busiest streets. They are a clever way to for people to avoid unwanted encounters with traffic and trams. The metro stations are accessible from the underpasses. Another unique thing about this underpass was that there were exhibitions of the ruins of Serdica. They were found when the Sofia Metro was under construction.
Bulgarians live forever in the afterlife on trees and bulletin boards in the center of town. These obituaries are called "necrologs." I took no pictures of them out of respect for the families, but if you want to see what they look like and read more about them, click here.
If you enjoyed this you may also like:
The Best of the Bisserov Sisters and Family (includes video footage taken in the Sofia Metro at Serdica station).
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.