Today we took a guided tour out to the Rila Monastery, but first we stopped to see the Boyana Church.
The Boyana Church was constructed first in the 10th century, then additions were made in the 13th century, and a final addition was added in the 19th century.
It is an Eastern Orthodox church.
This side is the part that was added on in the 19th century.
Here you can see the 10th century bit on the right and the 13th century addition on the left with the upstairs bit for the resident priest.
The back which is the 10th century part.
No photos were allowed inside the church. All of the walls and ceilings were frescoed. You could even seen where they plastered over older frescoes to make new frescoes. There is also an interesting version of The Last Supper were Jesus is at one end of the table (instead of in the middle) and the food on the table are turnips and onions, things common in Bulgarian dishes.
Here is a map of the inside of the church.
There is a nice park around the church.
Woo! Unesco World Heritage site!
We headed up into the mountains.
A little waterfall.
The non-green trees look dead but are actually covered in tiny pinkish buds.
LUNCH! They had this super colorful wagon outside. For reasons.
I was amused by this pansy stubbornly growing through the crack in the concrete.
Onto Rila Monastery!
MAP! Now I just need to find the compass.
We entered by the zig-zagy bit on the left.
The entrance to the Monastery!
That is a super colorful church.
Dan's phone does these cool 360 photos. I don't know if the blog will make them work or not.
The cloisters surround the church.
The monastery is named after its founder, hermit Ivan of Rila.
Okay so I thought the church was colorful from the outside.
The whole walkway around the church is painted with biblical scenes and imagery.
Dan and I took many photos of the paintings:
Hell mouth!
I think this fountain is made from five different materials.
Window irons.
Dan wanted proof that we were there.
We were allowed to go into the church, but not take photos once inside. This is my not so sneaky photo of the inside while still outside the threshold of the church door. The inside was also covered in paintings and had many gold decorations highlighting important elements of the paintings.
Dan's 360 from the front of the church.
A bell tower! Maybe we can climb it!
These trees have managed to infiltrate the might cloister walls.
This is the grave of Neofit Rilski (1793-1881). He was a Bulgarian monk.
In 1835 he created the first grammar book of modern Bulgarian.
Later he made the first popular translation of the bible into modern Bulgarian.
The water here is supposed to be very good.
The back side of the church.
Oh! The monastery was originally founded in the 10th century by Ivan the Hermit's students. It suffered from a few fires though and the current buildings date back to the 14th century.
We CAN climb the tower! So we did. We may have snuck away from the tour group to do this.
Info about the tower so I don't have to type it out for you.
The tower layout.
Narrow stone steps. A good sign for any good tower climb.
Hello wet countryside!
Rooftops!
With all the patterns and shapes the roof of the church is also pretty interesting.
360 roof view.
Little yellow dome. Yes, I realize the dome itself isn't yellow.
Views down into the Monastery:
It's a very sturdy looking tower. No wonder it survived so well.
It was time to leave. I wish we'd had more time.
I didn't notice this on the way in, but I saw it on the way out. It's the painted ceiling of the entrance area. Not religious, but still beautiful.
Drive-by photos!
Camping/Summer houses from the communist times.
Camping/Summer houses now.
Traffic stops for sheep everywhere in the world where there are sheep. Bulgaria is no different.
Small town in the shadows of the mountains.
And now, some landscapes:
Back in Sofia we took a rambling walk back to our hotel.
The bus dropped us off at the St. Alexander Nevsky Cathedral.
We found storage doors painted with Dali's "The Persistence of Memory."
We found a large cracked head statue. This is a statue of Stefan Stambolov, a famous Bulgarian politician among other things. He was apparently killed with a ax, hence the split in his head.
We found a large mural dedicated to....bread? and pears maybe?
Below the bread and pears mural we found this poem.
And this wall of fame kind of thing?
It's mostly hands and feet, but I'd like to point out the breast in the middle and the mouth above it.
Sofia also has a large pedestrian only area.
Its full of shops and restaurants.
This concludes our adventures for today.
