Bulgaria and the Mystery of the Balkans

I first appreciated just how different Bulgaria was from Scotland when arriving from the plane and leaving Sofia to make the journey to the town of Bankso, situated in the menacing Balkan Mountains.

What struck me immediately was the greenery of the landscape as we whizzed South through the countryside. It surprised me as I naively imagined Bulgaria as being grey and dull looking, like inner city Glasgow; having seen clichéd depictions of Eastern European countries on film and television. However the reality is strikingly different, with luscious green colours exploding in front of your eyes as the sun blazes overhead.

Once I had arrived in Bankso, a popular skiing resort during winter time, my parents and I opted to stay at Penbro hotel in nearby village Banya, run by a Scottish couple Derek and June. Having been given a warm welcome by the pair, we opted to enjoy the finer points of the Bankso nightlife, eating out in restaurants in the lovely cobbled streets of the town.

As for the food itself, to say it got the juices flowing is an understatement. Travelling hungry all day I was desperate to sample as much as possible of the Bulgarian food that was available to me. On offer was a variety of huge meat dishes, served with locally grown vegetables, in such large portions that I briefly imagined Atilla the Hun raucously feasting on them centuries before.

The meals presentation was particularly entertaining to watch, as the staff would often throw the meat skewers onto the wooden planks attached to the ceiling. We nervously smiled and applauded as we glanced up to see former skewers hanging down from the ceiling; although we were assured that it was perfectly safe!

In the next few days we journeyed around the mountainous region, climbing the Rila mountains trail to the incredible Rila Monastery. A beautiful ancient church with such a haunting echo of Eastern European history, it would take weeks for an outsider to fully grasp the significant culture of the monastery to the Bulgarian people, although its religious statement reaches internationally, bringing tourists from all over the world.

By far the highlight of the holiday was reaching the top of the Vihrin, the second highest peak in Bulgaria and third highest in the Balkans. Taking the designated walkway, me and my father climbed to the very peak to look down on the striking beauty of the Bulgarian countryside.

Other highlights included catching the tail end of the Bankso Jazz festival and travelling to other cities such as the metropolitan Blagoevgrad and of course the capital city Sofia, both of which provided a busier and faster paced way of life than the villages.

Travelling through the Bulgaria’s haunting mountainous regions helped me to understand and learn of the Eastern European way of life, completely changing my opinions of the area, and had me yearning to go back (which I did the next year) to a place of such a rich and vibrant culture.