A few days in Sofia and Plovdiv

So, fed up with being at home, I travelled again, and went to Bulgaria, a country I didn't know much about, so I didn't have any expectations. And it was quite a pleasant surprise. It's a very nice country - as soon as we arrived in Sofia, I felt totally at home, somehow it reminded me of Lisbon as it was some 10 to 15 years ago, before we were "fashionable".

We stayed at a very nice hotel near Vitosha Boulevard, the main street of Sofia. After the long flight, it was a pleasure to have a first taste of Bulgarian cuisine, somewhat akin to the Greek one - shopska salad, grilled meat, stuffed peppers, good wine.

On the next day, we walked around the city and visited the main sites. Vitosha Boulevard is a lively street. lined with shops and café terraces full of people chatting, drinking and smoking. The Sveta Nedelya cathedral is a beautiful Orthodox church, in neo-Byzantine style, with a lavish interior of candles and icons, all gold and colours. It was Sunday, so there was a baptism - we actually watched a number of baptisms in the several churches we went in that day - with family and guests on their Sunday clothes, bearded priests singing the ritual, that includes the removal of the child's clothes, her bathing in the baptismal basin and then donning a new set of clothes.

A little further North, there was the ancient Serdika ruins - Serdika was Sofia's Roman name - and the small church of Sveta Petka, where a witch-like old woman barred us entry, claiming that there was a service going on, and that there were no visiting times.

So off we went to the more welcoming Banya Bashi Mosque, a beautiful building with a simple and elegant interior, totally empty. From there, we crossed the Central Market and reached the imposing building of the Sofia synagogue - the biggest Sephardic synagogue in central Europe - that was closed.

We passed the beautiful building of the Sofia City Museum, an ancient bath building, and walked along elegant streets lined with 19th century National Revivalist buildings towards the Saint Alexander Nevsky Cathedral - a huge 19th century neo-Byzantine church, that somehow reminded me of the Sacré Coeur in Paris. There is a nice street market outside, with Communist memorabilia and icons side by side; the interior is extravagantly lavish, and the Icon Museum in the crypt is very interesting and worth a visit.

After a stop for a coffee in a garden overlooking the National Theatre, we walked to the Stalinist centre - with the Presidential palace and its good-looking young guards looking bored while being photographed by tourists (guess they choose the best looking boys for this role, and maybe they later pursue a career in modelling, after all the experience of being photographed looking bored) and the massive Communist Party building.

In the courtyard of the Presidential Palace - whose building is oddly shared with a Sheraton hotel - there stands the beautiful medieval church of Saint George Rotunda, where a mass was taking place, officiated by a priest that looked straight out of a Dostoiewsky novel.

Then we visited the wonderful Archeological Museum, housed in an ancient mosque, and filled with beautiful artifacts from Thracian, Roman and Medieval times. Thracian gold, lots of Greek and Roman depictions of the Thracian rider, the mythical local hero still depicted in coins, and medieval icons and paintings.

The Russian Church is another beautiful building, a kind of small and colourful jewel, both on the outside and the inside. On the darkened interior, in a side apse, a surrealistic detail: an ironing board with an old electrical iron on top. I would like to have photographed it, but "no photos allowed", so I respectfully didn't, which was a pity. But one felt taking this kind of instructions seriously - something that impressed me in all these Bulgarian churches was the apparent high degree of piousness of the people: they made queues to cross themselves in front of the icons, one by one, bending down to kiss them, and not only little old ladies but also young girls and young men. Guess the long period under Communism, when religion was persecuted, made it look desirable and that's why now people are so much into it.

After all that sightseeing, we had a wonderful dinner of grilled meats and salads, and the next day took the subway to visit the Socialist Art Museum. It's very interesting, with all the Stalinist statues in the garden, the big red star that used to stand atop the Party building and the "revolutionary" paintings.

The Zensky Pazar - the Ladies' Market - is a wonderful street market, with fine looking vegetables sold by women and men who don't speak English; we bought some delicious grapes and enjoyed the hubbub of an old-fashioned European market.

Then we visited the synagogue, a really impressive Jewish temple, lavishly decorated.

The train trip to Plovdiv was not very interesting, mostly sunflowers' plantations. But Plovdiv, the ancient Philipopolis, is a very nice town. There are some very interesting Roman ruins, and the Old Town features beautiful buildings with Ottoman influence, with the protruding balconies.

There are Orthodox churches - the Saints Constantin and Helena is stunning - and mosques and café terraces with lovely kittens asking for food and Roman ruins and mosques.

So I really liked Bulgaria, where men dress mostly in black, food is great and people are waking up to the outside influence after a long isolation - in vain did we look for banitzas in the cafés that lined the lively streets (we only found them on the subway foodstalls); what the locals ate everywhere was pizza! Guess it will take a while before they discover that the local staples will be highly looked after by tourists, and then everywhere will bloom "gourmet" and "boutique" places, as has happened in Lisbon. Until then, let's enjoy a genuine and lively Bulgaria that lives mostly for itself and not for sale.

Return to Serra da Estrela

Serra da Estrela, the highest mountains in Portugal, were always special to me, ever since I was a child and we would go there on Christmas time from my grandparents' home, which was not far. I loved the snow and the big granite boulders, the daytrips we took there were somewhat magical and different from our daily lives.

I went back a few times as a teenager, and later had a wonderful holiday there in the winter of 1989 with my girlfriend and a couple of good college friends - I remember driving towards the Torre (the highest point) through the mist and snow, a beautiful Narnian landscape.

I hadn't been back since then, and now I went back for a weekend in Manteigas with my family. And the feeling has remained the same, even if it was late summer and not winter, and the mountain was dry after a rainless summer. I always loved that rough summer landscape of granite boulders, brown and golden hills dotted with small dry green bushes, so reminiscent of my childhood summers at my grandparents' - playing cowboys and Indians with my sisters and cousins, stepping over a wild vipers' nest and running away, enjoying a respite from the dry heat under the rare tree.

The guesthouse near Manteigas had a splendid view over the glacial valley of the Zêzere river, and from there we hiked along the Wildboar route - no wildboars in sight, but a beautiful 11 km hike from the chestnut trees in the valley to the arid granitic boulders and back amid tall pine trees.

The next day we had a beautiful drive across the mountain, stopping here and there to enjoy the views and to have lunch at Sabugueiro, a village where I had stayed in that 1989 trip, now full of tourist shops along the main road, but keeping its old centre with the granite church and courtyards just the same as in centuries.

In between hikes and drives, we ate a lot of the wonderful regional food - lots of great cheese, grilled meat, chanfana (a very tasty goat stew) and pumpkin jam.

All in all, it was a great weekend, not only beautiful landscapes, tasty food and nostalgic hikes, but also great family time together.

Sowing - an autobiography of the years 1880 to 1904, by Leonard Woolf

So, after reading the beautiful collection of Virginia Woolf's memoirs, Moments of Being, I ordered the first volume of Leonard Woolf's autobiography, and am mighty glad I did. It's very well written, in a style totally different from his wife's or Strachey's, very controlled and matter-of-factly, but pleasant to read, especially for the content. Leonard Woolf comes up as an extremely sensible and intelligent man - and he must have been also extremely patient, because I'm sure Virginia was not an easy person to live with - and one can understand how he fit so well in the Bloomsbury group, not being an artist himself, and was able to form such a stable and long partnership with the genius Virginia was.

I particularly liked his account of his Cambridge days, of the group of friends under the influence of G.E. Moore that were the roots of the Bloomsbury group - the blooming would come later, once the Stephen sisters were added to the group. They still represent for me the fascinating transition from 19th to 20th century civilization, the beginning of the Modern Age I so admired.

Looking forward to read the other volumes.


The facade tends with most people, I suppose, as the years go by, to grow inward so that what began as a protection and screen of the naked soul becomes itself the soul. This is part of that gradual loss of individuality which happens to nearly everyone and the hardening of the arteries of the mind which is even more common and more deadly than of those of the body. [...] I suspect that the male carapace is usually grown to conceal cowardice. [...] It was the fear of ridicule or disapproval if one revealed one's real thoughts or feelings, and sometimes the fear of revealing one's fears, that prompted one to invent that kind of second-hand version of oneself which might provide for one's original self the safety of a permanent alibi.

But when I was a young man, Karl Marx and the Russian communists had not yet invented the international political lunatic asylum of twentieth century communism in which intelligent people can, in the name of humanity, satisfy animosities and salve their consciences.

It is true that in a sense "we had no respect for traditional wisdom" and that, as Ludwig Wittgenstein complained, "we lacked reverence for everything and everyone." If "to revere" means, as the dictionary says, "to regard as sacred or exalted, to hold in religious respect", then we did not revere, we had no reverence for anything or anyone, and, so far as I am concerned, I think we were completely right; I remain of the same opinion still - I think it to be, not merely my right, but my duty to question the truth of everything and the authority of everyone, to regard nothing as sacred and to hold nothing in religious respect. That attitude was encouraged by the climate of scepticism and revolt into which we were born and by Moore's ingenuous passion for truth. The dictionary, however, gives an alternative meaning for the word "revere"; it may mean "to regard with deep respect and warm approbation." It is not true that we lacked reverence for everything and everyone in that sense of the word. After questioning the truth and utility of everything and after refusing to accept or swallow anything or anyone on the mere "authority" of anyone, in fact after exercising our own judgement, there were many things and persons regarded by us with "deep respect and warm approbation": truth, beauty, works of art, some customs, friendship, love, many living men and women and many of the dead.

One loves and hates one's family just as - one knows and they know - one is loved and hated by them. Most people are both proud and ashamed of their families [...] There is therefore a bitterness and ambivalence in these loyalties.

Maddaddam, by Margaret Atwood

I loved the whole MaddAddam trilogy by Margaret Atwood, it's extremely well written and eerily real. The first two volumes were so exceptionally good I naturally had great expectations regarding the third. They were half met - it's still a very good book, but I felt a little uncomfortable with some of the developments, like the communication between the Crakers and the Pigoons, that seemed to me, unlike most of the other issues in the books, not grounded on science and so not that believable. Also, Zeb's story was not nearly as interesting as Toby's, Ren's or Jimmy's. Even so, it's a great book, and I highly recommend it.

O Sistema Periódico, de Primo Levi

A very interesting book; Primo Levi writes about previous life experiences from the perspective a a chemical scientist, his occupation before writing full time. The book consists in a series of independent texts, in chronological order, each named after a chemical element. It's an ingenious way to organise a memoir, and he succeeds beautifully. His writing is somewhat austere but always pleasant, and his musings are insightful and intelligent. Through his stories, one becomes acquainted with the situation in Italy during fascism, WWII and the post-war period, not only regarding the Jewish question. And he has the inestimable capacity to turn his reminiscences and reflections about himself and his experiences into a general musing about life in general; this capacity of universalising their experiences and thoughts is the true mark of a great writer.

The Master Algorithm, by Pedro Domingos

This is a most interesting book about a fascinating subject - machine learning. It really helps you to understand the brave new world we live in. I admit I haven't understood all the details, my mind works in a gestalt way, and I couldn't really picture some of the concepts depicted in the book, But even so, the basics are extremely well explained, and I learned a lot. The writing is very good, the author reveals a remarkable culture and knows how to explain scientific stuff to lay people. A very enjoyable and informative book.

Moments of Being, by Virginia Woolf

I wonder why I hadn't read this wonderful book yet, being such a fan of Virginia Woolf and Bloomsbury. Which was fine, since I could have the unspoiled pleasure of reading it now for the first time. What a joy, after so many biographies of Bloomsberries, diaries of Frances Partridge and such, to read the real thing, the exquisite prose of Virginia Woolf herself, so much better than all the rest! This book is a posthumous collection of autobiographical essays written at different points of her life, which, besides the quality of each one, allows us to see how her writing evolved and changed over the years.

Reminiscences is clearly a youth piece, still very conventional and ladylike, but with clear signs of the immense talent and originality waiting to explode. A Sketch of the Past, written when she was a mature and accomplished writer, is amazing, as Old Bloomsbury, one of the three texts written to be read at the Memoir Club, the one that most perfectly depicts what Bloomsbury was and why it was such a groundbreaking movement. 22 Hyde Park Gate and Am I a Snob? are the other two pieces, perfect examples of her wit and inimitable style. What a pity depression got her at 60, when she was still so aware and productive, how many wonderful texts she could have written.

The Year of the Flood, by Margaret Atwood

This is the second book of the MaddAddam trilogy, and it's as good - and scary - as the first. Margaret Atwood really has a knock for the dystopian, she creates them believable and plausible. And her characters show a thorough understanding of human nature. Excellent.

En finir avec Eddy Bellegueule, by Édouard Louis

What a wonderful, powerful book! I finished literally bouleversé. It's really remarkable - the writing is superb, beautiful even when depicting the most terrible events, never patronizing or romanticizing what and the author writes about. It's an implacable depiction of a mostly forgotten world, and extremely insightful and useful to understand the Le Pen phenomenon in France - and probably similar phenomena in other Western countries. It's very much about politics, and yet it keeps also to the personal view from an individual, whose personality and experience makes him question and face that world. The character of Eddy and his surroundings manages to be totally believable - and moving - never being didactic, and that's how a political novel should be. And how impressive to think Édouard Louis wrote this in his early twenties. I searched him online and read his excellent interview to the Paris Review; he's extremely articulate and to the point, and I think his will be a voice to listen to attentively in the future.

(Once more, I'm so grateful to Garth Greenwell for the suggestion!)