The real magic happens right where the road ends and the crowd and the noise vanish. Situated at the foot of the mountain, the little villages of Bulgaria own an unusual and quaint spirit, which you can easily sense the moment you get off the car. Here, peopke will say hi to you in the most warmhearted way, they will astonish you with their kindness and hospitality and they will never fail to make you feel welcomed and truly at home. It’s a feeling that cannot be described, you need to experience it yourself! So, join us as we are introducing you to some of Bulgaria’s hidden rural gems and the reasons why you shouldn’t leave without visiting them!
Authentic dishes, which you cannot taste anywhere else
On the yellowed pages of the old cooking notebooks left from our grandmothers and their mothers, you can still find precious family recipes passed through the generations. Of course, they were usually passed to the women in the family – those, who in the patriarchal structure were the keepers of the home as well as the ones who got everyone together around the dinner table at the end of the day. In the little Bulgarian villages, this is still the case. Truly authentic dishes prepared after preserved in time recipes is what the village housewives will cook for you! And, they will do it with love and consideration, with the desire to make you feel at home – the same way they do it for their dearest ones!
In the village of Nikolchovtsi in the Gabrovo region aunt Venche, will teach you how to make a “shtirnik” – a traditional type of banitsa prepared with special herbs and of course, shtir – a kind of green leafy vegetable. In the Rhodopes the rural culinary idyll continues with the making of the famous Rhodope “patatnik”and an overnight stay in the village of the longevous – the village of Momchilovtsi. Meanwhile, in northern Bulgaria, in the Dobrudzha region, Milena welcomes visitors in her mill, where she makes fresh flours of wheat, spelt and corn. She won’t forget to make a feast for you with a special Dobrudzha soup and malai as well as show you how to make an authentic “lapadnik”!
In Sadovo, our hosts will be waiting for you, ready to show you around their yard and garden, from where you will be able to pick some fresh vegetables and prepare the salad for the most delicious dinner later! Of course, before that the hosts will uncover the secrets to their specialty: Thracian pancakes, baked on a special clay plate that has been kept in the family for more than a century! Every region has its signature dishes and recipes, unique in their own way. Wherever you go, one thing is for sure: you will indulge in a truly authentic gastronomic experience, which can hardly be compared to anything else!
Age-old traditions and customs telling you a story
The Bulgarian villages and their families keep age-old traditions, customs and rituals – evidence for the immensely rich Bulgarian cultural heritage, which often remains unknown to many people living in the city or outside of the particular region. These are traditions with a high cultural value, many of which have no analogy in the world! Far from the hectic life and the common for the nowadays individual materialism and careerism, namely here, in the simple life of the village the traditions can be preserved in their purest form. An example for this is the small closed community of the Rhodope village called Ribnovo, where the old wedding ritual of painting the faces of the so-called “Gelina”brides still lives. This is not a ritual you will simply witness. You yourself will be immersed in it – sit with the locals and let them tell you their stories, dress you up in their traditional garb and paint and decorate your face in accordance with the custom!
In the village of Banichan, near Gotse Delchev, you will immerse yourself in the old Bulgarian tradition of wool socks knitting – the same ones we know from the past. Apart from teaching you how to knit, the ladies from the village will also tell you the interesting story of their unordinary kind of “banitsa”, showing you how to prepare it. These are experiences, which will provoke your mind and senses and make you feel as part of something beautiful and special!
Meeting the people of the Rhodopes – different, warm and as if coming from another age
The people – those, who create the place and its spirit. They are those, who will welcome you and who will fill your stay with a real emotion as well as conversations, which you will remember long after you have left… In the Rhodope mountain lives a different kind of people. It’s almost like their reality and microworld exist separately from the modern urban universe. The moment you step into the Rhodope village, you will feel the different energy of its inhabitants, that curious but warm look, their desire for interaction and closeness and that hospitality of theirs that never fails to surprise you. These are people, who live with a little, but are more than ready to share it all with you… because on their table there is always a place for one more human!
We are inviting you to prepare the unusual “sindermio” from the village of Mogilitsa. In the past, it was only prepared on special occasions and what is even more interesting is that its roots can be traced back to the Middle East. Now, for all dessert lovers we also have a little something. We are taking them to the village of Yakoruda to sweeten things up with a specialty that’s prepared nowhere else but here – the so-called gargaleta. We are going to be stirring quickly and thoroughly the mixture in the big pot on the fire and in this way experience a truly unordinary day with the locals – different and warm, as if coming from another age…