We joined a free walking tour today at 1100. There wasn’t much that we hadn’t seen per se, but the knowledge and the anecdotal snippets given by the guide were very informative:
- The Cyrillic alphabet wasn’t invented by/for the Russians but for Bulgarian. It wasn’t invented by St Cyril but his students based on his earlier work and named in his honour.
- Bulgaria’s history comprised of three Romanian kingdoms interspersed by Roman Byzantine and Ottoman rules between them.
- The Turkish rulers seem to have been very oppressive. But as hosts nowadays when I visit Turkey they’re very hospitable. The ultimate might be the Turkish attitude towards the ANZACs who attacked them; they’re again hospitable and conciliatory. Perhaps they’re like the Japanese who were cruel in SE Asia historically but very polite nowadays … and then there’s the denial of the war (by the Japanese and by the Turks with regard to Armenia).
- Today is herb day. People go collect herbs in the morning and give it to their friends and family.
- Easter (as in Romania) is celebrated a week after the Western Catholic date but Christmas is same as the Western date.
- After liberation from the Ottoman, the parliament opted for a monarchy. They needed a king and found a German prince to head up the nation. Bulgaria joined the numerous countries that had German royalties at some stage: Holland, Norway, Denmark, UK, Mexico Spain. Germany had many princely states and had plenty of royalty on hand. In fact their royalty had the surname as the Windsors before their name change.
- Veliko Tarnovo’s original name was just Tarnovo. Veliko, meaning “Great” was added during the communist era. Anyone who calls the city by its full name will obviously be non-locals who only use its original name. But locals love the new name.
- Sofia sits in one awkward side of the country because it was expected to be in the centre of a much larger country encompassing areas that’s now under Greek and Macedonian rule.
- Like Albanians, Bulgarians nod for No and shake their heads for Yes. The may roll their heads like Indians for a whatever.
- Obituary flyers are stuck in many places. They’re not just obituaries but also Memoriams. They can commemorate a certain number of days since death, or weeks or even years. We saw a 16 year memoriam.
- I learnt that mounuments featuring famous people on horses have specific meanings that are well-known to some Europeans. If the horse is on two legs, it means the man died in battle. On three legs, from battle wounds and on four legs means from old age. This didn’t apply for the monument in town here. Instead, it represented the relative stability of the government.
During the tour I chatted at length with this Italian woman who spoke fluent Indonesian after having just lived in Indonesia for less than 2 years. She did study the language beforehand at university back in Italy though. She, along with her friends work for Tripadvisor’s vacation rentals arm which is in competition to airbnb.
After lunch, we had a rest before venturing down to the monument by the river. I stopped along the way for a Bailey’s coffee from a vending machine and it was amazing how good a machine coffee can taste for just 0.50 lev!
We had a pizza and salad for dinner followed by a ice-cream. Not the model of healthy eating. Ice-creams here are weighed after serving (including the cone and wrapping napkin).