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<\/p>\nDay 9 and it’s Tuesday.\u00a0 Tomorrow, as I write this, it will be Tuesday two weeks on!<\/p>\n
Today we are being coached into the hilly ground to the south of the Danube valley.\u00a0 We had docked at Rousse again.\u00a0 Familiar ground – we know exactly where we are!\u00a0 Yeah, right!<\/p>\n
First up is a visit to the Rousse Lom valley and the churches carved into its vertiginous rocky cliffs.\u00a0 The Church of The Holy Mother is a UNESCO World Heritage site because of the 25 “fields” of frescoes on the walls and ceiling.<\/p>\n
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Painted in the 14 century by a gifted artist from Tarnovo, these remain some of the best preserved examples of the medieval Palaeologian style of Christian art.\u00a0 Obviously!\u00a0 We all knew that!<\/p>\n
The church was reached by a very narrow, winding road into the valley.\u00a0 It was really lucky that our coach didn’t meet anything coming the other way.\u00a0 We parked right beside the church.\u00a0 The entrance was a mere 50 metres above us.\u00a0 Straight up the rock face!<\/p>\n
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We had three choices (four, if you include staying\u00a0 on the bus!).\u00a0 One, break out the ropes, harnesses and carabiners and get climbing.\u00a0 Two, walk up the 3487 steps more or less diagonally up the face.\u00a0 Or three, walk up a long sloping path which zig zags to the level of the church entrance via Serbia.\u00a0 Consensus was for option three.\u00a0 Very sensible.\u00a0 We can always abseil or take the steps down after!\u00a0 The church door is a rather inconspicuous cleft in the rock face.<\/p>\n
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<\/li>\n<\/ol>\nIt was not the easiest of tasks getting pictures in a small, dark cave with 26 other cruisers milling about.\u00a0 However a quick shout that the earthquake warning system – a piece of glass glued across a crack in the ceiling – had detected a tremor cleared the space in no time.\u00a0 The guardian of the cave was out first followed by the local guide then 26 fellow tourists…<\/p>\n
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Oh!\u00a0 Silly me!\u00a0 False alarm!\u00a0 The glass is still intact!\u00a0 Still what a good opportunity for a photo of the whole place!<\/p>\n
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We had to use the steps to get down because George had forgotten the ropes and pitons.<\/p>\n
Next stop was the town of Arbanasi.\u00a0 Following the religious theme of the day our first stop.in town was at the Church of the Nativity of Christ.\u00a0 A deceptively unassuming building on the outside …<\/p>\n
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But absolutely beautiful inside …<\/p>\n
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(Photo of the interior by Svilen Enev – I hope he had permission because photos are not allowed inside!).<\/p>\n
Here we had a really good explanation about the interior of Eastern Orthodox churches.<\/p>\n
The nave is the main body of the church where most of the worshippers stand, and the sanctuary is the area around the altar, east of the nave. The sanctuary is usually one to three steps higher than the nave. The Iconostasis (referred to in an earlier post as the iconostage – sorry!) does not sit directly on the edge of the sanctuary, but is usually set a few feet back from the edge of the top step. This forms a walkway on which the deacon can stand to give litanies during the services.<\/p>\n
The iconostasis, though often tall, rarely touches the ceiling.\u00a0 Acoustically, this permits the ekphoneses (liturgical exclamations) of the clergy to be heard clearly by the faithful.\u00a0 Each of the painted icons has got a defined position on the screen.<\/p>\n
The iconostasis typically has three openings or sets of doors: the Beautiful Gates or Holy Doors <\/i>in the centre (largely unused), and the North and South Doors to either side. The central doors remain shut whenever a service is not being held (and often when it is!).<\/p>\n
The North and South Doors are often called the Deacons’ Doors.\u00a0 Logical because the deacons use them!\u00a0 The South Door is typically the “entrance” door, and Michael is depicted there because he is the “Defender”; the North Door is the “exit”, and Gabriel is depicted here because he is the “Messenger” of God. These doors may also be casually referred to as the “side doors”.<\/p>\n
The photo clearly shows the lack of seating in the body of the church.\u00a0 There are little fold-down flaps for the elderly (we all used them for our 10 minute presentations).\u00a0 \u00a0Most of the congregation stand for the duration.\u00a0 This can be three hours!\u00a0 And virtually all the action takes place out of sight behind the iconothingy.<\/p>\n
The old houses in town are largely two storey.\u00a0 The ground floor and perimeter wall are constructed of stone.\u00a0 The upper level of wood.\u00a0 A sort of defensive arrangement.<\/p>\n
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Sometimes the wooden section lets the place down…<\/p>\n
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Before we left the area we took our packed lunches to Veliko Tarnovo (or should that be Turnovo?\u00a0 Not sure!).\u00a0 This town, often referred as the “City of the Tsars”, has a serious bit of fortification going on on the hillside.<\/span><\/p>\n The city is located on the Yarna River and is famously known as the historical capital of the Second Bulgarian Kingdom. The old part of the town is situated on three hills,\u00a0 Tsarevets, Trapezitsa, and Sveta Gora, rising amidst the meanders of the Yantra. On Tsarevets are the palaces of the Bulgarian emperors and the Patriarchate, the Patriarchal Cathedral, and also a number of administrative and residential edifices surrounded by thick walls.<\/p>\n Our coach dropped us in Velchova Zavera Square.\u00a0 Velchova Conspiracy Square!\u00a0 There’s another complicated story here!\u00a0 The square is associated with the unsuccessful attempt of the Bulgarians to revolt in 1835 in Turnovo.\u00a0 Because the plot was betrayed, most of the conspirators (including Velcho Atanasov, the main man) were arrested and executed.\u00a0 OK.\u00a0 So perhaps not so complicated.\u00a0 One hundred years later a monument was erected to the “Heros”.<\/p>\n Well, this was a city with tourists (apart from just us).\u00a0 At least at the fortress end of town.\u00a0 We wandered up the main pedestrian (mostly!) street with the artisan stores selling all the things tourists want buy.\u00a0 We even had our picnic here before piling back on the bus to head for the ship.<\/p>\n More stories to come!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Day 9 and it’s Tuesday.\u00a0 Tomorrow, as I write this, it will be Tuesday two weeks on! Today we are being coached into the hilly ground to the south of the Danube valley.\u00a0 We had docked at Rousse again.\u00a0 Familiar… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2498","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-danube-2019"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2498","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2498"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2498\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2693,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2498\/revisions\/2693"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2498"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2498"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2498"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/20191022_083106-3991x1940-1024x498.jpg\"){kind=spacer}
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