Bulgaria

We spent two days in Bulgaria during our cruise, starting with a trip to the Belogradchik Rocks and Fortress at one of the highest points in the Balkan Mountains. The Romans added some walls and gates but relied significantly on the fortifications provided by the natural rock formations, making this a highly unusual fort.

You can see the main part of the Belgradchik Rocks and Fortress in the photo at the top of this post. Roland and I walked through the first gate and up to the second but did not make the grueling climb up the steps to the third gate at the top of the formation. The following photos show the first gate, another view from the distance, a closeup (through a zoom lens) of the climb between the second and third gates, and a face carved by nature—no human hand at work here.

The next day we took a full-day bus tour to several other locations in Bulgaria. Our first stop was at Arbanasi, where we saw a 16^th century orthodox church. It is different than the more recent ones because the country was occupied by the Ottoman Empire (Muslims), and it tried to ban the building of Christian churches. Although money bought permission to build some, they were not allowed to stand out, so they looked like any other house rather than having the ornate exterior of most orthodox churches. The interior was highly decorated with murals depicting Christian scenes, however. Unfortunately, pictures were not allowed inside, so you’ll have to take my word for it.

In that village, we also saw a museum which showed what a rich man’s home looked like around that same time. These photos show the exterior of Nativity Church and one room in the rich man’s house.

From there we drove to Veliko Tarnovo, which was once the capital of Bulgaria. The main sight was an old fortress on top of a hill that was in use during Bulgaria’s first and second golden ages (centuries ago). We did not walk up to the fortress because it was 95 degrees out. We did, however, do some shopping before hopping on the bus and returning to our boat during a violent thunderstorm. The next photo shows the fortress from a distance.

Like many of the countries we toured, Bulgaria’s charm contrasted with the drabness of the communist era. The last two pictures show a street in Vidin that escaped the communist stamp and a typical apartment building that exemplifies it.

The final stop on our cruise was in Romania. I’ll finish this travelogue there next week.

 

Serbia

 

The first day we were in Serbia, our morning excursion took us to Belgrade. We started with a walking tour through Belgrade Fortress. The ruins have been turned into a park and aren’t that impressive, but the location was important in former times because it is at the confluence between the Sava and Danube Rivers. These photos show part of the old wall, the place where the rivers come together, a plaza with a monument of “Victor” (a naked man seen from the rear in this photo), and a bird strutting down below the walls.

From there, we took a short bus ride to the Church of St. Sava, which is Serbian Orthodox. Although it was planned out between the two world wars and the first stone laid in 1935, construction was stopped until 1984, when they finally got government permission to complete it. It is a gorgeous church, as you can see from the photo at the top of this post. It is also stunning inside, as the next picture shows. There are no seats inside, though. During the 2-3 hour services they bring in chairs for the elderly and infirm, but most people are expected to stand.

That afternoon we took a bus excursion to Kovečica, which is a Slavic artists’ colony. We saw a number of cool paintings, but I didn’t take any photos because I didn’t want to infringe on anyone’s intellectual property rights.

While there, we also visited the workshop where Jan Memčik makes and restores violins. He explained the process to us and showed us examples of the wood he uses—Bosnian maple for the bottom and sides and resonant spruce for the top. The next two photos show Mr. Memčik at his work desk and an example of the Bosnian maple he uses.

Our second day in Serbia started with a stop at Golubac Fortress right on the Danube. It never saw much action as a fort because the owners kept giving it away peacefully, but it must have given pause to would-be conquerors. Because the area next to the river is narrow with mountains rising above it, for about a century (until fairly recently), the road ran right through it until fairly recently, when tunnels were built to route the road around it. Before then, trucks and buses scraped the tops of the arches and often got stuck in them. The problem was usually solved by letting some air out of the tires, but still . . .

The following pictures show Golubac Fortress and a catapult that is a replica of ones used there.

The rest of the day was spent sailing along a scenic portion of the Danube called the Iron Gate, with Serbia on one side of the river and Romania on the other. We heard a couple of different reasons for the name. One is because the rocks along the cliff have iron ore in them. But the river here was tamed with a set of locks, which could also be considered an iron gate.

As I said, it was very scenic sailing, but I’ll just give you two highlights. The first photo shows the entrance to that stretch of the Danube, and the second is Decebalas Rex on the Romanian side of the river. He was a king who fought against the Roman Empire, and the carving is apparently their version of Mount Rushmore.

From Serbia, it was on to Bulgaria. I’ll blog about that next week.

Croatia

 

After leaving Hungary, we continued sailing down the Danube to Croatia. We docked in Vulkovar, which is a typical Croatian town, and were treated to a vocal concert of classical Christian music at St. Mary’s Church. These photos show the church, the vocalist, and a Vulkovar street.

From there, the excursion bus took us to the city of Osuek, where we took a walking tour of an old citadel. It has not been used for military purposes for centuries, however, and is not what you expect a fortress to be. It was never on a hill, and most of the wall is gone. In fact, it was converted into a neighborhood many years ago (in the 1800s?). The photo at the top of this post shows part of the original fortress, and the two below show Holy Trinity Square, in the center of the citadel, and parts of the remaining wall.

Croatia was occupied many times, but its buildings didn’t suffer much until it declared its independence from Yugoslavia in 1991. Although it won that fight four years later, its building suffered significant damage. Most of them have been restored, but there are still evidences of that war. The next two photos show bullet holes in the side of a building and a train station that was destroyed.

The last stop on our bus excursion was for cakes and drinks in a local family home, after which we were shown around a small petting zoo that the family keeps as a hobby and to show school children. Apparently the zoning laws allow farm animals within city limits but limit the number of each kind (e.g., five pigs, ten goats, etc.). The next picture shows the front of the home we visited. The entrance is on the side because, at the time the house was built, you paid taxes for every opening onto the street. Although people wanted windows for light, having a door there wasn’t as important.

Later that day, we listened to a Tamburica Band on board ship. A tamburica is a stringed instrument that comes in several sizes with different string counts, resulting in a variety of complementary sounds, and each of the instruments in the photo below is considered a tamburica. Even the large one that looks like a bass was plucked, not bowed.

Next week’s blog post will follow us to Serbia.

Hungary

 

Roland and I just returned from a cruise on the Danube River from Budapest to Bucharest. In the process, we visited five Eastern European countries: Hungary, Croatia, Serbia, Bulgaria, and Romania. My next few blog posts will be in the nature of a travelogue, starting with Hungary.

We spent the first three days in Budapest (pronounced Budapesht) and experienced the food. We didn’t try the chimney cake, which is almost all sugar, but we did try other traditional Hungarian dishes. The first night we both had Hungarian goulash, which is a soup with beef in it. It must meet both of those requirements (soup and beef) to be real Hungarian goulash. The second night Roland had chicken paprika and I had Gypsy-Style Pork Neck. Both were very good

Of course, Hungary isn’t only food, and Budapest itself had many interesting sights. On the Buda side of the Danube, we walked to Fisherman’s Bastian and saw Matthias Church. Apparently Matthias was the only Hungarian king that the people actually liked. The next pictures show a street musician, Fisherman’s Bastian, and the exterior and interior of Matthias Church.

The next day we took an excursion to Gödöllö Palace, which is relatively small as palaces go. It was built by a count in the 1750s but eventually became a summer residence for Emperor Franz Joseph and his wife, Empress Elizabeth. That’s the next photo.

We left Budapest at night, with the Parliament Building and other buildings along the Danube lit up, as you can see from these photos.

That wasn’t the end of our stay in Hungary, however. We spent the next day docked near Kalocsa, Hungary. This is stork season, and we saw several nests along the way to an organ concert in St. Joseph’s Church. The stork’s nest in the photo is on top of a chimney.

We ended our time in Hungary with a visit to a horse farm, where they gave us a demonstration of traditional Hungarian horsemanship. The final photos show a rider in traditional costume cracking his whip and another riding ten horses at once (or rather guiding ten horses at once since he can’t stand on that many backs).

Next week’s blog post will be about Croatia.

 

Be Your Own Photographer

 

The final reason I take photographs is to document my site research. Although you may not take photographs for that reason, I’m egotistical enough to believe that you might find my process interesting. For that reason, I’m reprinting a blog post from March 21, 2022. (The book on the Pullman strike has been completed and is circulating among agents and publishers. The one on the Topaz Relocation Center is Desert Jewels, published in 2017 using the pen name Kaye Page and available on Amazon.)

Be Your Own Photographer

I’m currently working on a story that takes place in the Pullman neighborhood of Chicago during the 1894 Pullman strike. I found a number of images online, but since I live in the Chicago area, I decided to take a field trip and check it out for myself.

The Pullman factory is no longer there, although some of the buildings remain. More importantly, though, the residential parts are much as they were then. I can look at old photographs, and I did, but they didn’t give me the sense of place I received from walking the same streets my protagonists did and taking in some of the same sights they saw every day. Unfortunately, the feeling will eventually fade, so I try to keep it alive as long as possible through my own photographs.

Here are some I took while walking around the neighborhood. The one at the beginning of this post shows the wide, tree-lined streets, which were a drawing point back then as they are now. The next one shows the type of skilled workers duplex that my protagonists live in. The rest show, in order, the Greenstone Church my protagonists attend, part of the old Pullman factory, and the Pullman Hotel.

Fortunately, Pullman is a historic neighborhood and much of it has been preserved and/or restored. The same isn’t true of the Topaz War Relocation Center.

Topaz was dismantled and the buildings sold off after the war, and the last two photos show what it looked like when I visited on a research trip in 2014. Even though the camp itself was gone, being there reinforced the photos taken during the war and emphasized the sense of isolation and desolation the 8,000 inhabitants must have felt.

So if you have the opportunity to go on location to research your story, be sure to take a camera along.