Koprivshtitsa... An overdue entry

The weekend of Halloween (yes I realize that this is over a month ago), we went on a trip outside of Sofia, a few hours to a mountain town of Koprivshtitsa.  It is a beautiful heritage village, with museum houses and good traditional Bulgarian restaurants.  I had the best "doughnuts" of my life there before we headed back onto the bus to return to the big city.  They are a little less like doughnuts and more like small rounds of fried dough (which I guess is what a doughnuts is but these have more of the "fried dough/funnel cake" consistency). They are served hot, with powdered sugar, and I am sure are terribly bad for you, but taste oh so yummy... 

We took a bus the morning after Halloween from Sofia, and arrived mid afternoon in this lovely town.  We- my roommates (Meg and Erin), their boyfriends (Cooper and Andy) as well as Meg's friends from England went; two other Mike and Kate also went as well.  We all perused the shops, antiques, Bulgarian crafts, touristy shops too, as well as a little "open market" in the main square, where some baba's were selling homemade jams, bottled honey, woodcrafts, etc.  It was a great afternoon to wander around and enjoy some of the slower pace of the small town.  

Our "hotel" was an adorable inn/house.  We had rented out a couple of apartments in this building which had been refurbished from an old house into a rentable residence.  It was absolutely precious.  The inside of the apartments were painted and furnished with Bulgarian furniture, tapestries, and decor.  The ceilings were also extremely low!  I felt almost like Alice in Wonderland, when she is in that little house and eats the different pieces of mushroom to grow or get smaller...

It was just such a neat place to stay for this weekend trip.  The house itself was adorable and had a wonderful view of the village below and the mountains across the way...

The night we arrived, after sitting down to a large dinner/late lunch Andy convinced everyone 

to hike up this hill to this horse statue that is supposed to symbolize the man who fired the first shot in an uprising that happened in or around Koprivshtitsa.  By the time we reached the top of the flight of large granite steps, the sun had set behind the mountain on the other side of the town.  From our perch, under the orange and lavender sunset, we had a wonderful view of all the chimneys pumping out smoke from the houses, up into the darkening sky.  Such a neat sight- hundreds of rooftops, chugging smoke out the top...

Erin, Andy and I woke up early on Sunday to go for a walk around the still sleepy town.

  Gorgeous pictures were taken, mostly of the sun rising over the beautifully painted buildings.  There were bright greens, blues, a purple church, all with the low hanging, brown shackled roof.  Such a trip back in time...