Day 13 - Veliko Tarnovo, Bulgaria
Day 13 - Veliko Turnovo...another long walk to a hostel.
Day 13 - Veliko Tarnova, Bulgaria (Evening Light Show)
The calm of a relaxing evening at Hostel Mostel was suddenly broken by the sound of large church bells ringing through the darkness. The clang of bells announced the start of the much vaunted light show of Veliko Tarnovo's Tsarevets Fortress. As the first bell cut across the night our dinner conversation immediately halted. My fellow hostel patrons and I hopped up from our seats at amateur firefighter speed and began digging through packs in search of cameras and shoes. We looked like the Keystone cops as we gathered our gear and rushed out the door towards the fortress leaving Zheni's freshly made omelets and beer (well not all of us left our beer) behind .
After a couple of minutes of walk/shuffle/run we found ourselves standing amongst a large group of tourists and locals listening to the bells of Tsarevets' church as dazzling blue, green, red and yellow lights began illuminated the fortress' walls and towers in ever changing displays.
The light show is apparently held every Saturday, or when a large bus load of aged tourists kick in money to pay for the cost of the show. In our case we had the aged tourists to thank for the impromptu show. Standing by the main entrance to the fortress is a good place to watch the show and a good place to set up your tripod (or mini tripod in my case) in order to capture the brilliant but eerie images of the illuminated fortress.
Following the show, which sort of ends anti-climactically with the cessation of the show (the really need some fireworks or something) I decided to head back to Hostel Mostel. Exhausted from a long day of touring Veliko, a night of sleeping on trains and in train stations and a morning of lugging my pack along an expressway I fell into a deep and immediate sleep.
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