My first two days in Bulgaria landed, unfortunately, in the middle of a rather wet spell the whole region is suffering. I arrived in rain, and it really didn’t stop much until about an hour before our train ride out of town two days later. The air damp, but my spirits high, I spent my first afternoon in Varna getting the lay of the land of the nearby neighborhood. Even in rain, Varna has a charm to it. A bit gritty, with an odd combination of traditional European architecture mixing with communist brutalist design. Many beautiful old buildings have seen better days, but no one seems to mind. The city is clean and well kept, locals mostly keep to themselves, but are still friendly. A few words of Bulgarian go a long way to charm even the most stoic around here.
Laura wouldn’t be arriving for another 7 hours or so, so I had that first afternoon to myself. Of course, right as I ventured out to get a late lunch, the light rain transformed into a downpour, so my plans to wander about were cut short. The side streets turned into mini rivers, too big to jump so I just waded through. Stray cats and dogs were scrambling to find trees that provided some shelter, but with little luck. I found a great little place for lunch, and soon had a giant bowl of piping hot tomato soup to warm me up. The “small” plate of sausage risotto was enough to make 3 meals out of, and amazingly delicious. All washed down by a very large Czech beer.
I wanted to wander a bit more, but the rain just wasn’t letting up. So I did something I almost never do on my first day of vacation – I went back to my hotel room to take a nap. The Hotel Splendid is, well, splendid. Centrally located, right across the street from the massive (and I mean massive!) St. Cyril’s Cathedral, it provided us with a nice large room for the next 2 days.
The rain kept coming down for that night and most of the next day. Laura and I took a bus up the coast by about an hour to the little town of Balchik. Our plan was to have lunch there, explore the cozy seaside resort town (off season now, so virtually empty), then go another ½ hour north to Cape Kaliakra to explore the ruins of an old Roman fortress. I had packed an old pair of hiking boots, which haven’t been worn in many years, knowing that we’d be doing some day hikes throughout this trip. I wore them this day, figuring they’d be perfect for the ruins. What I didn’t know, though, is that at a certain point in a shoe’s life span, the glue that holds the leather upper to the sole dries up. Well, you know what happens when dry glue gets wet from walking around in rain and puddles? Total disintegration, apparently. Within 20 minutes of walking the boardwalk, one sole started flapping partway loose. We started asking around if there was a cobbler in town, thinking this was fixable. Within a few more minutes the sole of the other boot just came off entirely, leaving me standing in the rain in a soleless leather bootie. Well, this was going to completely ruin any plans for hiking (let alone just walking). As luck would have it, and a taxi came by just then. Although he knew no English, the driver figured out pretty quickly what I needed when I held up my boot sole. We got in, and in about ¼ mile he pointed to a path that led right to a shoe shop. We gave the owner a good laugh, but in just a few minutes she had me in a new pair of hiking boots, and the day was saved.
We hired a driver to take us to the Cape. Cape Kaliakra is beautiful, even in the rain. There was a light mist partially obscuring the sheer cliffs that provided the fortress with natural protection against invasion. Some small fishing boats were in the Black Sea below us, along with a few huge shipping vessels lining the Cape. The ruins were well marked, but mostly just outlines of buildings remained. We came across a strange find at the edge of one group of ruins – a small pile of bones. We could tell by the jaw bones & teeth that they weren’t human – looked like large dogs, maybe – but it was a little freaky. Laura and I couldn’t tell if they were excavated from the ruins, or something newer (maybe this was once a neighborhood pet cemetery?). After an hour or so, mostly having the ruins to ourselves (another benefit of off season travel), our driver took us back to Balchik and there dropped us off at the upper entrance to the Gardens of Queen Maria. Maria was the granddaughter of Queen Victoria, who married the King of Romania. At age 60 she used Balchik as her summer residence, with a small palace built just for her, and an amazingly large multi-tiered garden surrounding it. It took us almost an hour to rush through the garden, making our way down many small flights of stone steps, before we finally got to sea level to enter the palace. Queen Maria had an affinity for all things Turkish. From the architecture that inspired her summer home, to the 20 year old Turkish boy that reportedly shared it with her.
We returned to Varna, and explored a bit – yes, in the rain – until it was dinner time. Laura and I made our ongoing travel plans over dinner & wine, planning to leave the next day to get us one step closer to Romania.
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