We spent our last day in Varna, much like the first… in the rain. Everyone said it would be nice and sunny Monday. Which is nice, except that we were leaving on the afternoon train to go a few hours north to Ruse, a city on the border of Bulgaria and Romania. We spent the morning visiting a few standard tourist sites – St. Cyril’s Cathedral (huge), ruins of a Roman bathhouse, and a local historical museum. We stopped in a small café to warm up with some tea, and were entertained by a Bulgarian flash mob. OK, it was really a group of women from a local church choir who sang a special song to one of their group, as it was her birthday. When we said it was also my birthday, they shared their tray of pastry with us and invited us to see them perform at their church.

On the train, we saw our first glimpse of the sun in 3 days. And, then, it was gone. The second half of our train ride was through thick fog. It made the countryside rather surreal, and a little creepy. If we were on the Transylvania leg of the trip I would have been wrapping my scarf tight around my neck.

We arrived in Ruse at nighttime. Ruse is known as the Bulgarian Vienna. It sits on the Danube, and has an enormous central square and plaza area. From there a number of pedestrian streets shoot off, like spokes on a hub, all rows of belle epoch architecture. Pastel yellows, pinks, blues, etc., with icing white trim and decoration. Even in the rain and dark it was very pretty. Our hotel was right on the square. We headed out for a late dinner. We chose a restaurant that we had also seen in Varna – the Happy Bar, which had a #1 rating on TripAdvisor. What we found is that it is pretty much the Bulgarian version of Applebees – very Americanized fare, even quesadillas on the menu. It was the first disappointing meal of the trip. Which wouldn’t have been so bad, but it was a mediocre way to finish off what had otherwise been a great birthday.

We spent our first day in Ruse being standard tourists, taking a walking tour of the city, seeing a few museums and churches. The rain followed us to Ruse, but it stopped for most of the day. Like Varna and Balchik, we were pretty much the only tourists in town, and had most of these places to ourselves. We enjoyed the archaeological museum, as it contained a lot of pieces from places we would be going to the next day, and we learned more about what we were going to be seeing. Laura and I tried to go to a local winery on a hill overlooking Ruse for dinner, but arrived only to find it was closed on Mondays. So back down to the square it was.

Tuesday morning we were picked up by our driver, Hanko, and spent 4 hours touring three main sites. The ruins of the medival town of Cherven, the Ivanovo Rock Churches, and the Basarbovski Rock Monastery. Cherven was amazing – located on a large bluff, it had natural defenses, in addition to the large walls built around the whole city. It takes a climb of over 200 steps to reach the ruins. Only about 1/3 of the old city has been excavated, but the views are fantastic. We spent over an hour wandering around before going on to Ivanovo. In the 12th century the monks of Ivanovo decided to build their churches and living quarters into cliff side caves. Again, a good climb to get up there, but it was worth it. The colored frescoes have been incredibly well preserved. The monks abandoned the churches in the 14th century after an earthquake hit the area and destroyed some of the caves. They were “discovered” in the early 1900’s and are now a UNESCO Heritage site. Our last stop was at the rock monastery, which is still in use. Also built into the cliffs, small chapels are carved into the stone.

The most amazing thing about the day is that the rain had stopped. Finally. Of course, now that it was getting nice in Ruse, it was time to move on to Romania. We caught the 2:30 train to Bucharest, then moved straight on to Brasov, in the heart of Transylvania. Dracula, here we come!