Campervan Therapy

We arrive at the attractive Tarnovgrad Apartments, complete with gym, right in the middle of Veliko Tarnovo’s old town, round the corner from the Bey House, where the Turkish administrator lived. Redbrick, low-slung, surrounding a lush courtyard garden, it lends a little bit of Turkey to the town.

The apartments sit just below the stunning Medieval walled fortress, with its eyrie of a church looking down on the town. The bridge across to the castle hangs over a deep gorge, the Yantra River far, far below. Veliko is known as the historical and cultural capital of Bulgaria, but it’s also got a spectacular setting, on three hills.

We set off to explore the castle, its towers and fortified walls seeming to grow out of the gorge. A man approaches us. In perfect English he asks where we’re from, tells us that British and Irish people are buying up old properties in Veliko. He says he’s an archaeologist, showing us Roman coins from a dig at Pavlikeni, a rural town with extensive Roman and Thracian remains 40 kilometres away. We later find out from our Brother-in-Law, Greg, that you can buy these coins in Pavlikeni.

 During our pleasant chat, the man informs us that his son loves collecting current British coins. He also shows us the spectacular gorges and waterfalls only 25 kilometres away. After I root out a pound from the depths of my backpack, he produces a big bag of gems laced onto string, one of which he puts round my wrist.  It’s the most pleasant and harmless piece of scamming I’ve ever encountered.

Of course I pose on the executioner’s beheading block in the tower that reveals a day in the life of a fortress guard, the ridiculous grin on my face giving the game away. You can see though how impenetrable the fortress was, with sheer drops from which they’d chuck anyone unfortunate enough to get on their nerves. Yet the sun shines on the smoke trees, their scarlet leaves dramatic against the limestone gorge.

Seán does love an App so his plant one identifies the smoke tree for me. I’ve been obsessed with its flaming colour since the drive from Sofia to Veliko along the wooded valley that runs west to east, bursting with Autumnal colours – umber, gold and scarlet. Now I just soak up the tapestry of leaf colour as well as the sun silvered river far below.  

A disembodied voice warns us of vipers but I’m sad I don’t come across one viper. As we wind our way up to the church, we’re spellbound by the 360-degree views of houses clinging to sheer rocks, cupolas and minarets poking up through wooded slopes and valleys. I think of Seán’s sister Jackie and how this place must have been a magical world for her, so far from the London home she’d left.

The interior of the church is decorated with the most stunning murals, elongated figures of knights, Ladies, swords, skeletons, horses, kings and the obligatory Madonna, which depict the founding of the Medieval Bulgarian Kingdom.

The choir music and the fact that not one inch of wall is bare makes this a feast for the senses.