A different colonial yoke
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That also seemed to be the case in the newer resorts of Golden Sands and Sunny Beach. Golden Sands was a two mile long strip of gold-colored sands blanketed by sun-bathers and their beach umbrellas.
On the day I arrived in Varna a tourist told me that two persons had drowned in the sea. This was unusual because Varna has a fine beach. Varna is also a port. I walked on a path over a sea wall to reach the Captain Cook seafood restaurant facing the busy port.
There were several ice cream kiosks. I stopped at one. The vendor rushed to the counter from the back where she was being given a massage by a family friend. In the small park nearby, dominated by a statute of an avuncular leader.
A woman sat on a low stool and crocheted baby socks to sell. A man hustled tourists, offering them, alternatively, women and exchange for foreign currency. The writing on the sleeve of the T-shirt of a young woman nearby said “Come, get your fun.” Her uninviting appearance, however, indicated that the inscription was more an unintended gibberish.
Alas, on the short alley outside the hotel that connects to the center of town, the old tiles were broken, and the big building next door was empty and dirty. Across the alley young woman clerks, fully dressed and made-up, swept the sidewalk in front of their clothing and accessory stores and then stood and smoked while waiting for customers who seldom came. People strolled on the long pedestrian-only streets that stretched from the Cathedral of the Assumption of the Virgin to the beach.
The frescoes on the walls of the church were far more vivid. They are by a number of painters from the National Revival period. With one exception, none has signed his name as they humbly considered their work not to be theirs but done by “the hand of God.”
You have to go several steps to reach a very slow elevator to your room. On the landing the antique shoe polish contraption on the landing still works but sometimes does not stop. The service is impeccable. Breakfast is not buffet-style; you are served your choice at tables covered with white linen. My room had a balcony with a view of the sea.
Varna is a throw back to the days when it was called “The Pearl of the Black Sea.” That is its charm. Its Grand Hotel Musala Palace was Hotel London when it originally opened in 1912. Exquisite stained glass windows adorn the entry door.
The Monastery is a striking sight with colorful red, black and white striped arcades and four levels of balconies.
Monks who live there strolled among the tourists who are allowed to stay in some of the rooms on the premises.
On the day of my visit, a side walk painter was sketching this church, with a sign next to him that said: “I refuse in any way to be identified with Bulgaria.”
It is the biggest Orthodox Church in the Balkans. It was consecrated in 1924, and the smoke from countless candles has since covered much of its frescoes. The Russian diplomats in Bulgaria, however, chose to build their own church, St. Nikolai.
The heart of Sofia is the Rotunda of St. George, an early Byzantine cross-dome architecture built in the 4 th Century over a previous Roman rotunda.
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