Boyana spring - Rila Monestary - Plovdiv

Today should have been a break day. But in the end it was three day trips in one :D Just too much too see here!

In the Boyana District at the foot of the Vitosha mountain next to Sofia is a free water spring with drinking water. I watched for a while and was astonished how every two minutes a new pensioner walked trough the forest to the spring to fill up several 5l water bottles and to carry them away! So heavy. One old woman took a bag with rolls (in German: "Hackenporsche") to carry the weight. By asking why she takes the water from there, another old woman explained to me, it would be the best quality and would be very good for your eyes.
So, I filled up my bottle and hoped to digest it well.

Then, I made it to the Rila monastery (the Jerusalem of Bulgaria). Build over 8000 years ago. 60 monks still live there. It was a place that kept Bulgarian cultural thinking during the Turkish leadership in Bulgaria for several hundred years. The founder of it lived 17 years alone on a rock in the mountains and was a big role model for others... well...

Then, I made it to Plovdiv after many more hours of driving on really bad roads. A local explained to me that it is the easiest for corruptive politicians to take money from the roads when receiving EU funding. They have the streets build it in poor quality and take the rest of the money. Would it be better to stop EU funds for streets when there's corruption? I thought long about it but would prefer to put better controls in place. There are at least streets!

The old city of Plovdiv with all its restaurant, bars, students and artists took me into its ban.Weiterlesen