Bulgaria 2005
This was our first trip to Bulgaria since 2001.
Toni and Philip left on Memorial Day weekend and stayed mostly in Plovdiv (2nd largest city of Bulgaria),
Rob left in the middle of June, met them at the airport in Sofia and we went to visit some
friends of hers in Pleven. We stayed at their villa near Aprilitsi, in the Balkan Mountains
(Stara Plenina, or Old Mountains, as they call it), named after the April (of 1876) uprising
against the Ottoman Empire. We hit a
geocache in Pleven and dropped off a travel bug before
traveling over the mountains on a somewhat narrow road to go to Plovdiv. After a night in
the city we continued to Izvor, where Toni's mother has a villa (summer house). We stayed
there most of a week, then made our way to Sofia and flew to Munich (Muenchen in German),
then back to the heat and drought of Chicago.
The statue of the Russian Soldier (Ilyusha), on one of the three hills of Plovdiv, and the
view overlooking Plovdiv from its base.
Baba Nellie is with Philip downtown, by the old Roman
colliseum they discovered under the streets. The statue behind them is of Philip of
Macedonia, the father of Alexander the Great. Back in his day, Plovdiv was known as
Philipopolis, and that's where we got the idea of the name "Philip" for our son. Then
the two of them in the old part of Plovdiv.
Some common pastoral scenes - a cowherder, this
one on horseback, and on our trip in the Balkan Mountains,
I saw this old barn with stone slate roof and a horse cart inside with wooden wheels.
Baba Ganka, Toni's grandmother, visits with family
friends in Plovdiv. She will turn 90 in November. We took a four-generation picture
(plus Rob) - Baba Ganka in back, Baba Nellie on left, Toni and Philip make the four
generations.
Philip on the back porch of the villa in Izvor,
SE of Plovdiv, then on a Trabi (with the Trabant's owner) in front of the villa (hidden on
the right, behind Dyado Krum's grapevines).
Philip takes a ride on a horsecart by invitation of
some passing neighbors (the ones with the stone-roof chicken house, now a rabbit house).
Misho helps fix the phone line, so we can attach the cordless phone instead of the old
behemoth.
Toni, Baba Nellie, and Misho's extended family,
including two growing daughters, Slavaya (posing) and Gergana, wife Petya and Petya's sister Mary.
Before leaving, we visited with some cousins in Sofia who took a liking to Philip (of course).
More Bulgarian images and information at the web page from our
2001 and
1997 trip to Bulgaria , or
back to our home page.