Pechating Business

Pechat in Bulagarian means stamp. So what does "pechating" mean? Well, Bulgaria has these small books with a list of 100 national sites worth seeing. (The book is pictured below.) And every time you visit one of the sites in the book, they give you a stamp. Think rubber stamp not postage stamp. Each stamp is unique to the place visited. Once you get 25 stamps, you get a bronze pin, 50, a silver pin, and all of the stamps, a gold pin.

So, in a nut shell, pechating means to go stamping. Unfortunately, I only recently got my hands on this book and have been to many more place than I have stamps for. But who knows, maybe I will make it back to those previously visited places and get that well deserved stamp. Does this sound all a bit dorky? Well, it is. But I don't care. I think it is fun and gives me more reason to reach those far off places that I may not have thought to.


And so, the pechating mission begins. With the long labor day weekend recently, it was the perfect opportunity to go off and explore more of Bulgaria. And my friends and I were up for the task. We all started in different parts of Bulgaria but met up in Ruse. We went from Ruse to Ivanovo Rock Monastery to Veliko Turnovo. We crashed in VT and headed out the next morning to Lovech. From Lovech we went to Troyan Monastery, the second largest monastery in the country next to Rila. From there we were hoping to get to Sopot, Karlovo, and Kolofer but with having to wait for buses and trains, we just couldn't hack it. That will be for another time.


As of now, I only have about 11 stamps, but had I got the book a long time ago I would have already had that bronze pin. Here is to pechating!!!