Moving On

Waiting for a coffee

 

After helping Jeni and Jordi to get a little closer to domestic and married bliss we were ready for a short break.  Veliko Tarnovo really hit the spot.  Hostel Mostel, is the best and the city is just the right size to get to know in a short time.   We spent 3 days there walking around the city and the best, a walk up into the hills and visited Abanasi.  Up through the trees and onto the limestone upland, hot, smells of flowers, wild herbs and the green growing of spring.  Lizards, a snake, red squirrels, lots of insects.  The flowers were numerous and we found lots we didn’t know, 3 types of orchid for instance.

Turkish Merchants House

Abansi is an upland village that has found fame – very commercialised but we visited an old house built by a Turkish trader at the time of the Ottoman empire, very interesting.  Then a very old church completely painted on the inside with old depictions of the life of Christ.

Orchid

Tsaravets Fortress Veliko Tarnovo

Everything here is 6 Leva (app £2.80) entrance, houses, churches, castles and exhibitions, anyone would think it was state controlled!!

Inside the fortress

The Old High Street

In need of TLC

Now we are sad and excited,  sad at leaving Bulgaria where we have had the most fantastic time, excited to start something new – a 12 hour bus ride to Athens then an overnight ferry crossing to Crete, we’ll keep you posted.

Palamartsa 3

Jordi & Jeni

Our time here in Palamartsa has been used in helping our hosts, Jeni and Jordi.  Megan has been making dresses for their wedding in July.  She has made one  bridesmaid’s dress, one for the maid of honour, and one for Viv, Jeni’s mum.

Sewing Lady

Whilst Meg has been sewing, I have been mostly decorating, but when the weather has been good I have done some work in the garden.

Painter man

 

Leo

The two J’s are involved in buying, selling and renovating the houses here in Palamartsa.  Jeni has contact with the local people here who want to sell, usually the houses are very run down and been in the family and when the older generation die, the younger decide to sell.  You can buy a house for less than £10K with land for a veg garden and outbuildings for chickens etc. Jordi is a plumber and electrician and works with the local tradesmen to improve the houses, which are bought by mostly Brits.  The two of them work In the local economy and think in Lev rather than Pounds or Euros.  In comparison to the UK things are generally cheaper, but working and being paid at local rates evens it all out.

Louis

They are so busy their ‘helpers’ from Helpx improve their home and help them function from day to day.  Whilst we have been here we have seen the culmination of helpers’ efforts by painting and moving them upstairs into their own bedroom leaving the downstairs room as a sitting room.

Dresses for the wedding

Mau

Ava

Zena (warrior princess)

          

                         

Here is a link to the houses for sale in Palamartsa -

https://picasaweb.google.com/lioappletree

              

                               

                      

Palamartsa 2

A view of Palamartsa

Village life here in Bulgaria is very different from our life back in Halifax, it is much slower and the people are more self sufficient.  As well as having land attached to their houses, where they grow vegtables, some also have land away from the village in a large field. 







This field is marked out and they have plot to grow more crops, we have been told that they have to give part of this crop to the land owner - just like Medieval Britain.

Some of the villagers also keep animals, mostly chickens and sheep, some have a few cows as well.  They can also use one of the shepherds to take the sheep out of the village in the morning and he or she takes them around on grazing land staying with them all day and when they return in the evening the sheep recognise where they are and leave the flock and 'baa' outside their house to be let in.

Village road

                             

 We have also noticed the complete lack of traffic noise except for cars passing the house, 1or 2 an hour, and no contrails in the sky from passing aircraft - a landscape photograhers dream!

Palamartsa

Jeni & Jordi's home in Palamartsa is a traditional village house, with a little land and out buildings.  The village once had 4 thousand people, but now there are less than a thousand and new people are now moving in.

The village sits in rolling countryside and the first thing we noticed when we arrived was the blossom.  People have been self sufficient here for many years especially through the communist era.

Today, Easter Sunday, we shared a meal with Jeni & Jordi's Bulgarian neighbours, sharing tradional fun games with hard boiled eggs and lots of home made spirits (Rakia) made from plums!!  Later we watched traditional dancing in the village square.

Yesterday Chris drove across Bulgaria to collect Jeni's friend Catherine from Plovdiv airport and saw some spectacular scenery.   

Sofia

Amazing.  An old Trabant, crumbling buildings, new (who gave them permission for that?) buildings.  Around Sofia in an afternoon, the highlight the Ladies Market, sounds and smells fruit and vegetables, groceries, sweeping brushes! Golden domes, dangerous pavements, Sofia needs more than half a day!

The Hostel Mostel is an old Greek traveling inn with separate apartments a short(?) walk away.  What an experience.

Before we go

Now we've got an empty drive and were almost fleeced by Webuyanycar.com.  We escaped the ever reducing price, grabbing the keys and the documents off the desk firing the parting shot, "we'd rather do without the money".  A narrow escape and the car is now sold, for less than we really wanted but rather more than the offer from Wefleeceeveryone.com.

Before we go

Its quite a feeling to be disentangling our lives here in Halifax.  Finishing work and, for Chris, taking a break from Scouting,  has left us surprised and delighted as  friends and colleagues say thier goodbyes.  

Regarding 'stuff'; as ours disappears in to the Tardis that is our loft space, its filled with new 'stuff' the stuff of our new tenants!  Our 'stuff' is rapidly becoming a small pile that will fit into a couple of backpacks!