You better not stop along the road because if you are late to the next you would be subject to arrest.
Fortunately that is no longer the case.
A statue of Sofia in the city of Sofia.
We were told that the statue isn't of Saint Sofia because of the pagan symbols (owl, laurel wreath) that are included.
In fact the name of the city is accented on the first syllable and the city on the second (or maybe it was the other way around).
Two of the cathedrals in the city.
A mosque in the center of the city.
And right next to it a Roman era church.
The guards outside the presidential palace didn't seem to concerned about our group.
An actual yellow brick road made with bricks cast in Budapest and given by the Austria-Hungarian Empire to Tsar Ferdinand I on the occasion of his wedding.
Two more churches with gold domes.
Leaving the city we were treated to views of it's impressive surroundings.
The entrance to the Rila monastery.
This panorama from the courtyard will give you some idea of its design.
The dome and altar.
Here an angel and a demon offer their records of the good and bad things that a person has done during their life.
The lower right frame shows the demon giving up because the person has done more good than bad.
The second picture is a detail of one of the panels.
A painting over one of the doors in the monastery.
Trout fresh from the mountain stream behind the restaurant just down the road from the monastery.
Storks seem to prefer this town judging by the number nesting on house tops and chimney.
We would see occasional donkey carts as we traveled.
Just one more view of the countryside.
