Rila monastery, Bulgaria

Continuing our rush to connect back to the railways..over hills and green rolling land to Bulgaria. Horse-drawn carts, small tractors, cows on the road, pigs making their final journey, storks in rice fields and with huge nests on every chimney or telegraph post, roadside shrines like tiny Orthodox churches, over the border to the EU again with Cyrillic script and every house in Rila framed by vines for home-made rakija schnapps. Rila Monastery in the high mountains and cool pines with wooden galleries like an old inn on the Rhine, but still full of black-clad monks, candy stripes, amazing frescoes, a fantastic bakers, gold and incense, mystery and prayerLæs mere