Bulgaria

When arrived in the rather cosmopolitan city of Sofia, Bulgaria, there was a puppet festival going on. All around town there were advertisements for the shows. There were even a few 3-D advertisements:




We stumbled upon one such show in a park (they were are held in various parks around the city) and it was a trip. The word "puppet" is much more open ended than we had realized. This show was an intricate performance piece that kept a large group of people, all speaking different languages, captivated the entire time with its human puppets:




We later found ourselves in a landscape which we have not experienced in years, mountains. We visited the ski resort town of Bansko in the Pirin mountains and, it must be said, they were much more impressive than we had expected:




It reminded us of our former lives in Jackson Hole. All the taverns looked like Pepi Steigler's Restaurant, except we could afford food there, so that was better:




The vistas we equal to any mountains we've seen around the world:




In the beautiful town of Plovdiv we enjoyed walking through the old town but ran into a few rainstorms so we ducked into taverns to avoid them. We spent the time having fresh wine from the barrel:




We were not limited to wine, however. They practically give beer away for free in this country. It is not just sold in bars and cafes but on virtually every street corner. In fact, you see it very often at bus stops, since it is cheaper to buy than water:




It is sometimes better to stick with the beer and wine, as the offerings on the menus can be a bit strange:




In Veliko Tarnovo we stayed in the house of some locals and the view was stunning:




We walked on the walls surrounding the old fortress:








After that it was off to the Black Sea coast and the resort town of Sunny Beach:




Believe it or not, some friends of ours (who have obviously not spent the last few years in Peace Corps) own a penthouse suite in this town and put us up for a while. Once installed we had little to do but hang out and watch the sunsets, which is better than we deserve. Thank you, Travelling Campbells:



(You may notice our preference for white wine. It makes us a bit of pariahs in Bulgaria. They adore wine. To say they prefer red would be a massive understatement. They have many, many songs about red wine but only one about white and it goes something like this, "White wine, oh, white wine, how I wish you were red.")