Shumen & Balchik

Our guidebook recommended Shumen, where we could see the largest Ottoman mosque in the country. It didn't tell us that it is under major reconstruction, and that other than the mosque, the city is an example of communist blight. Our hotel was a Soviet-style monstrosity, which looked more like an airplane hangar than a hotel. The breakfast room, which served the traditional Bulgarian breakfast of cigarettes and expresso, rivals an Olympic stadium. The two of us, the only tourists, felt rather small in this cavernous space.

The highlight of Shumen was our dinner in the hotel. We were lucky enough to stumble upon a Bulgarian wedding reception. At one point, the female wedding guests came out with huge cream cakes and started dancing while the men tried to steal their desserts - or at least, that is what we think they were doing. It all looked like a fertility rite gone wrong. They danced to music that could be classified as techno-folk, played at high speed and volume.

From Shumen we stopped briefly at the Stone Forest, an interesting set of stalagtite-like stones. Then we continued to Balchik on the Black Sea Coast to visit the former palace of Queen Caroline of Romania. We walked the extensive gardens and visited the rather eclectic palace, which includes a "mosque" which was actually a beachfront chalet - meant to symbolize the queen's desire for a tolerant society. In Balchik we experienced another Bulgarian food phenomenon: when you buy an ice cream cone, they sell you it by the gram! They actually scoop in the ice cream and then put it on a scale and weigh it to let you know how much it costs.