On June 1st, Stefan from Fossy’s forum, his brother Sven, Horst and I journeyed along the South seaside, and we almost got to the Turkish border. Same as the previous year, Georgi gave us a ride.

We visited Sozopol first. We immediately noticed it was Children’s Day. It was really going to be a great party. Later on, we continued towards Primorsko. We headed directly to the boat quay. Then, off to Ahtopol. I really wanted to get to the Turkish border but I couldn’t work my will. My fellow-travelers didn’t quite like the bad road.

We were unanimous: no matter how many and interesting places we visited, we wanted to spend our next vacation at Sunny Beach – yet again. We liked it there best.

On our way back we stopped in Bourgas. There we met with our dear friend Sneja and her boyfriend Hristo. After that we went back to Sunny Beach.

Rolf Pankrat, a colleague of mine from the executive board of the Bulgarian-German Society in Leipzig, was accommodated for a week in the next-door Marvel hotel. Horst and I met with him quite often and we also organized this wonderful journey. Besides his work as a translator from Bulgarian, mind me, he had also studied history for a few years in Bulgaria, and became our “guide”.

We rented a car and headed from Sunny Beach through Tankovo, Goritsa and Ruen to Dobromir. We saw "Chudnite kamani" - the "wonderful rock’s”. We continued through Komunari and Ivanski to Shoumen. We were impressed with the great many small villages. While in Shoumen, we went to see the monument “Founders of the Bulgarian State".

Khan Asparuh and seven Slav tribes laid the foundations of the Bulgarian state here in the year of 681. The monument is built in 1981 on the occasion of the 1300 anniversary of the event. Visitors could see the figures of the founders of the Bulgarian state that were bigger than the regular human size, as well as other characters of historic importance, and a colorful mosaic representing the country’s history.

There’s someone living here for real

The wonderful rocks

Guide-board to the monument

The lion head of the monument

Scientia potential est: We had to climb a few  hundred stairs to see the following:

View from the monument to the town of Shoumen and the place of the first Bulgarian state.

The first Bulgarian state that existed from 681 to 1018. The first capital was Pliska. The capital was moved to Preslav in 893. The town’s ruins are preserved. They are not real. They are built on the groundwork of the ancient buildings so that visitors can get an idea where the constructions used to be.

We had lunch before we looked at this landmark

The entrance to the palace

Rolf Pankrat in front of one of the many wells in the country from which one can drink amazingly clean cold water. Unfortunately, this well did not belong to the three per cent of the wells which gave Rakiya instead of water.

After that we stopped at Vrabnitsa where Mr. Pankrat called an acquaintance in.  I had to park at a place with some suspicious characters moving around. I hated it but, thanks god, nothing happened. For security reasons, we didn’t take pictures there. Before crossing Stara Planina to the South through Vrabnitsa passage, we dropped by at a small hotel with a restaurant.

Then we headed back. The road through the passage was 1.000 meters in altitude. It was very narrow and bad. If a truck had also appeared in front of us, it was going to get real interesting. However, we got lucky.

After we crossed Stara Planina on the way to Sunny Beach, we passed through Sungurlare, Karnobat, Aitos, Kableshkovo and Aheloy.

It was a wonderful journey which we wouldn’t have been able to organize without Mr. Pankrat’s help. My knowledge of the Bulgarian language would not suffice for the purpose. Here I would like to thank again our “guide”!