Flowers in Dragalevski monastery, Vitosha mountain, Sofia/ Драгалевски манастир и цветя

 

Dragalevski monastery is still working as a female monastery located in the Vitosha mountain a short drive from the center of Sofia. There are documents mentioning the monastery back to 1371-1393! This holy place was already existing in the first Bulgarian kingdom.... Nowadays a nice walk during the green forest takes you to the complex consisting of a church (dating from the 15th century) and few adminstartive building+appartments for the nuns. At the end of May the nuns were busy with the garden, tons of beautiful flowers were on display! The garden of the complex is open for visitors who may enjoy the flowers, fresh mountain water and light a candle in the little church. I had fun taking pictures of the colourful blossoms and plants, my mum had a lesson in macro photography with her new camera too:-)

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Some more colourful street art from Sofia, Bulgaria

 

Some of you may remember that 2 years ago I have reported here from a very cheerful street-art-project in my home town Sofia. The boring grey electricity boxes in street Shishman were painted by artists. This timeat home I have realised that other streets were "decorated" too. So today I am presenting you with my selection of the original boxes in street Rakovska. As the National Opera is locate din this street as a lot of theaters you may see (or not) some links to some of the art work:-))

 

...and believe it or not...I have found elephants in the center of Sofia too...

More Dutch flower fields, Bollenstreek in colours 2013...

 

This post has all pictures featuring me. Usually I do not post many pictures with me...However this time I was lucky to do the flower-fields-tour with a good friend and colleague of mine, who is an amazing photographer (dont miss the chance to enjoy the fantastic gallery of Roland here). It was also him, who asked me what happened with all these amazing flowers we have seen (+photographed of course:-). A lot of my visitors get really shocked (...and some even dont believe me) that these beauties are simply cut and the thrown away, usually next to the fields (thats how I know what happened with them).

 

...and then the next question arrived: why are they planting them at all? Tulips and the other spring flowers reproduce every year. If the bulb is planted not too deep (around 7-8 cm deep than it will grow bublettes. These bublettes (the tulip grows usually 2 till 3 f them) are separted (after the mother bulb is dug out around 1,5 months after the flower dies off) and can be sold. And this is the reason of why so many flowers (tulips, daffodils and hyacinths) are planted  in the low lands :-) The Netherlands exported 3,6 billion flower bulbs in 2010, the biggest customer in the lasty ears has always been the US...

Flight over Zuid-Holland, part 2: Scheveningen, Zandmotor, Monster, den Haag and Delft

 

In the second part of our sightseeing flight with Lionair we flew alongt he coastal line passing by Noordwijk, Scheveningen, Kijkduin (above is the Zandmotor) and Monster.
The Zandmotor is a 2-year-old project to reinforce the costal protection between Kijkduin and Ter Heide. The manmade sand peninsula should support the natural collection of more sand in this part of the coast (and help build bigger dunes),

 
In Westland we went inland and the greenhouses-landscape (see third picture) was all over till the horizon. here a lot of the Dutch fruits&veggies are grown. After we saw some known and unknown places of the Hague and Rijswijk the central square of the Delf Old town charmed me... Simply amazing experience:-) Have a good new week everyone!

 

...and here are the views of den Haag and Delft (last picture).