Today we are heading to Bourgas, another city on the Black Sea Coast. It is about a two to three hour drive from Varna. On the way to Bourgas, though, we stopped at Alabja Monastery, which is unlike any other monastery we have visited so far. The monastery was in the caves of this mountain, as you can see from the top picture. The monks had carved out rooms and halls within this rock and used this as their living and praying quarters. When we visited the outer wall had been taken away and there were several oil paintings in each room depicting what it was used for.
In the picture to the left, Kristen is peeking through one of the passage ways. Hermits lived here starting in the Middle Ages, around 1300s. The caves also contain several tombs where people nowadays put coins on to honor these monks who are buried here. The cave monastery is two levels.
One the second level people who visit leave notes in the crevices of the cave. These notes are wishes and prayers to God. They believe that by leaving this, God will read and answer their prayer/wish in either 3 days, 3 weeks, or 3 years. I decided to write a wish and wrote a few sentences on a yellow post-it note. Then I found a place in the wall and carefully placed my note in with all the others that were already there. The picture to the left is of my note (it's the yellow one).
We then had out bus ride to Bourgas where we all felt tired after traveling around so much, so I am not relaxing in my hotel room. We have moved to 15 different hotels on this trip so far and have several more to go!
Hope you're all doing well!
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