20 April
2025 – Shipka Pass & Etar
Miles
driven today = 115
Total Miles
to date = 3,872
We didn’t
see anything while we were driving through Kazanluk this morning to make us
regret our lethargy in not getting the bikes out to explore the town yesterday. Then it was on to Shipka with its impressive
gold domed Memorial Church sitting high on the hill overlooking the town.
At that
point we started climbing.
The Lonely
Planet reckons that the Shipka Pass is the only sensible way to drive up and
over the Balkan Range.
It looks pretty
daunting on a map with numerous switchbacks but in reality the road on the
upwards climb is wide and well surfaced and I’m sure my motorcycling chums
would thoroughly enjoy its curves.
We
stopped at the top to see if we could take in the views.
The area is heavily forested so there was no
way of seeing all the way back into the valley but the panorama was still worth
jumping out of the van for.
Because of
its strategic positioning there was a major battle for control of the pass here
during the War of Independence when many Bulgarians, Russians and Turks lost
their lives.
The 7 storey high Monument
of Freedom was built on the summit of St Nicholas’ Peak to commemorate their
sacrifices.
You can walk up there but we
were happy to view it from the car park beneath.
The summit
of the pass also marks the border between Stara Zagora and Gabrovo Provinces
and the quality of the road surface was noticeably much poorer on the
descent.
As we reached the bottom we
took a right turn and detoured for a couple of kilometres to the village of
Etar.
At the far
end of the modern village is an “Ethno Village” which is basically a museum
reproduction of how a Bulgarian village may have looked like in the second half
of the nineteenth Century.
In many
ways it is very twee and slightly artificial but it does nevertheless give an
interesting insight into how life would have been all those years ago.
A lot of
the buildings and artefacts on display were salvaged from Etar and its
neighbouring villages.
In many of
the workshops you could see the artisans hard at work.
This was a blacksmiths producing knives and
other cutlery.
A working
watermill.
Inside the
corn grinding machinery called a “Karadzheyka”.
The mill
also had a “Tepavitsa” which was used for beating fabric (fulling).
Each of the four wooden hammers weighs 150kg.
This building
housed a water powered lathe used for turning wooden bowls.
The village
has a working bell tower.
We were close
by when it struck 11 O’Clock.
This building
houses a small cinema showing educational films on the ground floor.
The first
floor has exhibits of household implements and costumes from the late 19
th
to early 20
th Centuries.
And on the
top floor the exhibits included these textile examples.
An
assortment of Wagons, Carts and Sleds.
The blue
building reminded me very much of some of the houses of the same era which we
saw a couple of days ago in Koprivshtitsa.
It houses a general souvenir shop full of fridge magnets and the like.
The
remainder of the main street is then taken up by small workshops where you
could buy a memento of your visit.
The leatherworker's was full of belts and bracelets and a few more artistic pieces of work as well.
The bellmaker’s
workshop.
Essential items for every
self-respecting goatherder.
A press
used for making “Sharlan” an unrefined vegetable oil which locally
was made from walnuts, sesame and flax, although other raw ingredients were
used elsewhere.
Bagpipes in
production in the musical instrument making workshop.
The tannery
had these huge tubs, each created from a single carved out log of oak.
Above the
workshops rooms were made out to appear as they may have done 150 or so years
ago.
Again there are similarities here
to what we saw on Friday.
The Holy
Epiphany Church and school is a replica modelled on one built in the village of
Radovtsi in 1868.
It was
nevertheless consecrated in 2006 and there were a couple of guys lighting
candles in there as one would expect to see in any other working Church on
Easter Sunday.
Finally a
smokehouse specifically used for preserving plums.
We still
had a good 2 and a half hours driving to do today so we didn’t linger. Veliko Tarnovo sounds like an interesting
place and I had initially pencilled in a stop there but I’m afraid we just didn’t
have the time. We’ll have had 10 days in
Bulgaria by the time we cross the border into Romania on Tuesday but we’ve
barely scratched the surface and I’d love to come back for a longer visit at
some point. As far as Veliko Tarnovo was
concerned the closest we got was some houses which were built directly above a
tunnel entrance. It must be a bit odd
looking out of your bedroom window and seeing traffic driving directly towards
and under you.
We’ve made
our way to within just 20 minutes’ drive of the River Danube and the Romanian
border.
We are staying in a fantastic
little place called Koukery Campsite, which sits high above the town of Koshov and a gorge created by
the Cherni Lom River.
We’ll go
and explore more tomorrow but for the remainder of this afternoon we were
content with sitting in the sunshine and listening to the birdsong.
The temperatures have finally climbed back into
the mid-20s.
We had our dinner al-fresco
this evening for the first time on the entire trip.
Salad Days are here at last.
Tuna Nicoise to be precise.
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