The Covered Bridge of Lovech

The town of Lovech is east of Sofia, a short distance north of the main highway to Varna. The town once served as the headquarters of Bulgarian revolutionary hero Vasil Levski. Besides a statue and museum devoted to Levski, and the old fortress overlooking the town, Lovech is famous for one thing that the locals are very proud of - their covered bridge.


Lovech's covered bridge is the only one of its kind, not only in Bulgaria, but in all the Balkans. The bridge was originally designed by Bulgarian National Revival architect Kolyo Ficheto in 1874, and we had seen a model of it last year when we visited the Ficheto Museum in Dryanovo.

The bridge burnt down in 1925 and was rebuilt in the same style. Today, there are a number of souvenir shops, jewelry stores, and a cafe inside the bridge, which spans the Osum River and links Lovech's modern center with the Varosh old town.

Below: A Trabant car parked near a house in Lovech's old town.


While Jodie, Joyce and Barak stopped into a Varosh church, I climbed the many, many steps to the top of the hill for a view of the Lovech fortress, dating back to 1187.


A statue of Vasil Levski overlooks the fortress and the town below.


Below: A view of the fortress on the hill.


Below: A better look at the covered bridge of Lovech. To sum up our visit to the town, we were not too impressed, neither by the bridge itself or by our walk through the Varosh old town neighborhood.

Comments

  1. NikAugust 14, 2010 at 6:13 PM

    Hi Jodie and Ellis -- I was browsing your blog -- interesting photos and information. One quick correction -- the photo of a car that you have on this posting is not a LADA but a East German Trabant (otherwise known as Trabi)....

    ReplyDelete

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