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After our brunch, we walked out into the town and explored some of the small streets near our hotel. We headed in the general direction of the Tsarevets Fortress, the largest (and one of the only) tourist attractions in Veliko. We enjoyed walking through the narrow cobblestone streets with their quaint homes and gardens. We came upon a church that had a great view of the fortress and stopped for a few minutes there to admire the view. Veliko is surrounded on all sides by the meandering Yantra River which has cut deep into a gorge. This makes for a very picturesque view from pretty much anywhere in the city.
We had originally wanted to go to the beaches near Varna, on the Black Sea coast, for the next several days. Unfortunately, we checked online and it seems the cloudy weather we've been having here is also going to be sticking around the coast for the next week or so, with temps in the 70's (warm, but not exactly the best beach weather, especially if it's cloudy). Instead, we decided we'll stay here another day and visit the close town of Arbanassi tomorrow. After that, we'll make our way into Romania and perhaps visit 1 extra sight there. It's nice to have a little flexibility in our trip now that we don't have any flights we have to catch until our flight home! Back at the hotel, we relaxed for the remainder of the night. View Veliko Tarnovo Photo Gallery
Day 164 - Veliko Tarnovo < | Index | Photo Galleries | > Day 166 - Veliko Tarnovo and Wrapping up Bulgaria © 2007 Blue Ocean Studios, LTD. All rights Reserved. Privacy Policy | Terms of Use | Services | About | Contact Prints | Return Policy | View Cart World Travel Galleries | World Travel Blog | Links |
We had another great day in Veliko Tarnovo today. We can definitely see why the guidebook says that more than a few tourists have ended up staying here long term. We had a leisurely wake-up and went downstairs for breakfast. It was similar to breakfast in Turkey - meats, cheeses, tomatoes, cucumbers, fresh cherries, yogurt and bread. We decided we're going to start eating the fresh fruits and veggies now. After all, Bulgaria and Romania are both set to join the EU in a year or two - you'd think that safe food and drinking water would be one of the requirements.
We reached Tsarevets Fortress and paid the $2.50pp entrance fee to get in. We got lucky in that a large tour group was just leaving, and we ended up having the fortress all to ourselves other than a few other independent travelers. Tsarevets Fortress was built within the 5th through 12th centuries, although many parts appeared to be reconstructed. We wandered amongst this triangular shaped complex, soaking in the sun (when it peeked out through the scattered clouds), and enjoying the ruins. Some points of interest included the executioner's rock (where people were once pushed into the gorge), the royal palace (a small castle now in ruins/reconstructed), and the parishioner's church up at the top of the hill. The church has been reconstructed and has strikingly modern gothic murals inside. We spent a while basking in the sun on top of the castle walls and then made our way to the other side of the fortress where we had great views of the Baldwin Tower and the river gorge below. 
We left the fortress and walked back up towards the main road into town. Along this walk, we accidentally stumbled upon the "tourist shop" zone where you can find shop after shop of souvenirs. Too bad the one we liked the best was a large cut stone with a painting on its front - much too heavy and large to carry back with us. They also seem to sell a lot of embroidery items and wood carvings here. We saw some locals hanging out on the sidewalk with beers near a small shop and decided to do the same. While we were there, 2 tour groups passed by us (one American and one we couldn't identify). There really are not many tourists here though, compared to most destinations, leaving Veliko with an unspoiled old world/small town feel. 
After hanging out for a bit, we made our way down the main shopping street where we found lots of clothing stores. As Mario mentioned a few days ago, the jeans I had brought from home have just about had it. They were 2 years old before I brought them on this trip, but have aged much much quicker in these harsh traveling conditions. I now have 5 separate holes in them (with duct tape on the inside) and they are super easy to rip. We stopped in a few clothing shops and I found some cargo-style pants that were exactly my size. I tried them on and they were a relatively good price ($32), so I decided to go for it. It's great to have another choice of pants to wear everyday! Mario wanted to buy a pair of jeans, but we couldn't find any that fit or looked just right. 
We continued down the street and sat down at a cafe where many of the locals were having drinks. Weird, because we couldn't really find anyone that was eating dinner, only drinking. We ordered a pizza anyways, and 2 beers. We read in the guidebook that Bulgarians love pizza, and it seems to be true, with almost every restaurant advertising pizza. It took an extremely long time for our pizza to come out (almost an hour!), but it ended up being good. One thing we noticed during our waiting time was that a large percentage of women seem to like to dye their hair red here. And we're not talking about a normal red, its always a purpley-dark red. Very unusual.