Roman forts & Sheep yogurt

A few from the villa. The white church in the background is in Zhelzna.
Chiprovtsi is unseen, but several kilometers to the right. 

This weekend was fantastic. So happy Spring is here! I didn’t think the winter in Bulgaria was as awful as I had expected, but it was still pretty tough: the days were short, it was cold everywhere, and I caught pretty much every cold that came around. This weekend was a reminder of how great things can be. On Saturday I walked to Zhelezna (its name means ‘iron’ in Bulgarian), a village down the road from Chiprovtsi. There, I met with Palma, a teacher from Petar Parchevich, and the school director. We spent the day walking, picnicking at the director’s villa, and hiking up a mountain to an old Roman lookout post.

Roman wall

According to Director Trencheva, there are six such Roman ruins on mountain tops in the municipality and it took 7 minutes for a message from Belogradchik to reach Rome via smoke signals-a distance of about 1000 miles by foot on today’s roads or 550 miles by air. The ruins we hiked to are not reachable by path, announced by sign, or maintained by any park service, they just exist in the woods.  It’s incredible: after 2000 years, these rocks still stand in the places where they were set so long ago. Roman coins were found near one of the old walls a few years back, but it looked like the only recent visitors were some wild boars digging for food.


We grilled sausages, fetched water from a shallow well with a gourd, drank yellow rakia aged in hollowed wood, and her dog ate a bar of soap. It was lovely.

On Sunday, after the market (which was finally busy again!) I went over to Didi’s to make yogurt from sheep’s milk. First, we heated the fresh milk, then mixed it with some old yogurt (3.6% Бор Чвор is also acceptable to use as a starter), and poured the warm mix into clean jars. We wrapped them in towels to slow the cooling and after 3 or so hours—sheep yogurt. In the meantime, we ate mekitzi with cream from the boiled milk and I helped make devilled eggs. In the afternoon, I went with Jordanka on a long hike to discuss the million different ideas floating around for projects with kids and the environment and to see some different trails I might use for running. The eating cream on fried dough must end soon so the marathon training can begin!