Sou Pa!

Gorno Draglishte

Autumn colours in the Pirin Mountains

Our hotel in Sofia was luxury!  We had a working lift (20kg bags now feeling like 40), the rooms were warm, the bathrooms posh and breakfast offered the best choice we’d had so far.  We left reluctantly, and only on the promise of a private minibus.  Off we headed, up into the hills for some stunning autumn colours and a short break at the Rila Monastery.  Our appetites had returned – it was freezing; so the promise of bean soup & monastery bread meant we ate first and explored later. 

Rila Monastery - note snow on mountains behind

Painted, painted & painted

If you have to be fond of a devil then this dancing one's for me!

The Monastery is quite beautiful and those who showed more restraint and took the time to see the little museum were well rewarded (though perhaps just a little hungry)…  Back on the bus, we set off for the tiny and very friendly village of Gorno Draglishte where we were accommodated in a seriously split level guest house.  Had it been Aus, it would have defied all planning rules (and maybe even those of gravity) for sure. 

Our afternoon walk ended in a pub crawl ensuring we met almost all local families and made friends with all manner of two & four footed creatures.  The Cap’n earned a reputation for horse whispering (twin foals – inquisitive and up for mischief); goats & their goatherd considered we were decidedly “sillier” for tramping in all that mud; and a quick lesson in the basics of agricultural life (meaning home brewed life-threatening liquors).  Oh, but that first beer (a Zagorka) by a warming fire in the pub was really good!

We were looking forward to dinner and having inspected the dining rooms and found a loom (plus various other crafty knick-knacks) hoped to enjoy a little after-dinner recreation.  Well, we did, courtesy of Baba Yana & Baba Lena – only these two (having already tippled on a little home brew me thinks) knew how to par tay!  What can I say – we toasted once or twice too often (with rakia), sang songs with gusto (in Bulgarian – or was it braille?), dressed up in costumes and danced like revellers at a Trinidad Mas, then quietened down for the gentle art of making pompoms.  Rakia flowed, wine flowed and conversation flowed – though not always in the direction you thought it was heading!  With the promise of a cart ride in the morning (if it stopped raining), we finally escaped this den of a “wickedly good time” for our warm, comfortable beds.  No-one offered to help the Babas with the dishes….

This "party" was a complete surprise and probably one of the best “cultural” experiences we’ve had….and we’ve had a few.  I want to warn future guests to WJ3 – I have the Baba’s very own music CD and the Cap’n has been busy assembling supplies for brewing his own fruit rakia!