Posted in The Trip on Jul 5th, 2008 1 Comment »
This will probably be my last post from Bulgaria. We toured Plovdiv this week with its wide pedestrian malls and old town with its National Revival architecture. We ate dinner in a restaurant built over Roman ruins and bought pottery directly from a potter in her tiny pottery studio. The next morning there was a [...]
Posted in The Trip on Jul 1st, 2008 No Comments »
We arrived at the Black Sea port of Bourgas. On the way we drove through some of the hotel construction along the shore. Gorgeous hotels and souvenir shops are crowded next to each other. It was easy to see why the biggest industry in Bulgaria right now is construction. This area is booming! We also toured [...]
Posted in The Trip on Jun 29th, 2008 1 Comment »
We’ve crossed most of the country since Saturday morning. A long bus trip took us to Etura for lunch and a tour of the Etura Ethnographic Complex, a sort of outdoor museum similar to Colonial Williamsburg. After we arrived at the ancient capital Veliko Turnovo, we hiked around town for amazing views of the hills [...]
Posted in The Trip on Jun 28th, 2008 No Comments »
We’ve had a week of immersion in Bulgarian culture. Lectures by experts in art, literature, history, dance, the economy, and politics have been have been punctuated with an amazing folk music concert and terrific Bulgarian food. We visited two private high schools and had the chance to hear about the challenges in high school and [...]
Posted in The Trip on Jun 21st, 2008 3 Comments »
Just a quick post for today: We visited two of Bulgaria’s national monuments today, the Boyana Church and the Rila Monastary. Both date from the Middle Ages, and both had outstanding art work. We’re going out for pizza soon, so I’ll have to continue this post later.
We had a tour of the tiny, recently restored [...]
Posted in The Trip on Jun 20th, 2008 No Comments »
After a long bus ride north we found ourselves out in a rural area of trees and small scattered villages. We stopped in a small hotel near Lake Kerkini, a man-made lake supplied by a river from Bulgaria. Prof. Pyrovetsi narrated a boat ride across the lake to the bird sanctuary with thousands of birds. [...]
Posted in The Trip on Jun 17th, 2008 4 Comments »
In this part of the trip we have had a chance to explore Northern Greece and some of the more out of the way places. We took a boat trip to Mt. Athos where a large number of monasteries are located. We stopped in tiny villages for rest breaks and lunches. Yesterday we toured Roman ruins [...]
Posted in The Trip on Jun 14th, 2008 No Comments »
We’re here in the second largest city in Greece. It has more charm than Athens with more parks and wide streets (but fewer ancient ruins). The Byzantine influence was stronger here. We toured the Byzantine Museum and the Orthodox catherdral. Today we traveled to the American Farm School, an agricultural high school outside of town. [...]
Posted in The Trip on Jun 12th, 2008 No Comments »
We’ve headed north through Patras, on to Delphi, Arahova, and Meteora, site of six Orthodox monasteries. We made brief visits to two (actually a monastery and a nunnery). They are perched on top of rock outcroppings that overlook a broad valley. I wanted to post some pictures, but I forgot them upstairs in the room. [...]
Posted in The Trip on Jun 4th, 2008 4 Comments »
Since I haven’t been able to log on until now, I have a lot of catching up to do. I think today was probably the highlight so far. We went to the Acropolis to see the Parthenon today. It was spectacular! Even with all the scaffolding and cranes surrounding the Parthenon because of the restoration, it [...]
