SUNDAY, JULY 7, 2019 . SECTION F EZ EE

SUNDAY, JULY 7, 2019 . THE WASHINGTON POST EZ EE F1 KLMNO Travel

CAYCE CLIFFORD FOR THE WASHINGTON POST

NAVIGATOR In any tongue, an Make sure to read your emotional family travel contracts before return to Wine country’s food pairing you hit the road. F2 GO HERE, NOT THERE BY DINA MISHEV For 25 years, Thomas Keller has graced Yountville, Calif., with his genius In New Orleans, a genteel , a city built on six hills respite from Bourbon rising from the plains between BY MARY BETH ALBRIGHT Street. F2 the Balkan and Rhodope moun- tains, is Bulgaria’s first European I recommend approaching Yountville in the dark. Nighttime driving conceals Napa Valley’s INDIA Capital of Culture, an annual Mayacamas Mountains and hillsides, so I wake in my hotel surprised and enchanted by the Escape the heat at these designation given by the Euro- pean Commission to highlight vineyard landscape. ¶ Darkness also helps me imagine the time before Napa Valley became mountaintop vacation the diversity of arts and culture. an international wine destination. The industry ran on faith between the winery- destinations.F5 It is one of the oldest continually inhabited cities on the continent. decimating plague of Prohibition 100 years ago and the 1976 Judgment of Paris, when Napa Walking around it, it’s all I can wines beat French wines in a blind taste test. The latter event started a worldwide Napa do not to cry in gratitude, wonder and happiness. I am on a family Valley wine obsession that continues today. ¶ And for Yountville, a town nestled in southern trip that I never expected to Napa Valley, the opening 25 years ago this weekend of chef Thomas Keller’s the French happen: my dad, mom, brother and myself visiting the country Laundry began its time of flourishing. Keller turned the French Laundry into an where my father was born. He international bucket-list destination, a place where people who can’t get (or can’t afford) lived here until he was 14, when he and several family members reservations take selfies in front of the sign. SEE NAPA VALLEY ON F4 fled as the Communist Party grew in influence across the country. A hot air balloon hovers over the Domaine Chandon winery in Yountville, Calif. Emotions follow me 125 miles northeast of Plovdiv to Veliko SEE BULGARIA ON F3 SUNDAY, JULY 7, 2019 . THE WASHINGTON POST EZ EE F3

pulled by oxen Belyo (“white”) and Sin (“blue”) was an all-night Father’s journey from the family farm. Veliko Tarnovo is almost 200 miles farther from his village than Vidin. Plovdiv is about 50 homeland miles more distant. My dad learned about the long histories of both cities in school, but says is worth the idea of seeing either in person never crossed his mind. In 2003, when I was in my mid-20s, I spent two weeks in the visit Bulgaria with my dad, but didn’t make it much farther from his village than he had as a kid. On BULGARIA FROM F1 that trip, my initial meeting with every second cousin, family Tarnovo. Here, over Bolyarka friend and former neighbor who beers on a large terrace overlook- hadn’t fled the country (and who ing the imposing Asenevtsi Mon- didn’t speak English) started ument — four larger-than-life- with them excitedly greeting me size mounted horsemen around a in Bulgarian. I smiled in what I 30-foot-tall sword — we agree hoped was an apologetic manner this city should be Bulgaria’s next as my dad explained I had no idea European Capital of Culture. what they had just said. Veliko Tarnovo was the coun- An argument could be made try’s capital for several hundred that my father shouldn’t have years and reigned as one of listened to a 7-year-old complain- Europe’s centers of arts and cul- ing about language lessons. Still I ture in the . (It’s fine can imagine “this is your lan- to just call it “Tarnovo,” which is guage, not mine” hurting so what most locals do; veliko, much that it made sense to wait which means “great” in Bulgar- for me to come back to him when ian, was only added to the city’s I was interested. Except I never name in 1965.) Tarnovo was the did. By 2003, all I could do was first Bulgarian city to be written recite the first seven letters of the about in National Geographic; a Cyrillic alphabet. story about it ran in the maga- Every introduction left me zine’s October 1907 issue. Its feeling I had let my dad down. history goes back five millennia That trip ended with me glad and its cobblestoned, red-roofed to have put faces to names of homes and businesses spill down these distant family members a steep natural amphitheater cre- and to have seen where my dad ated by a sharp bend in the grew up. Since he left, his family’s Yantra River. house had been razed and a modest, one-floor, village hall Reclaiming a heritage built in its place. The well he Growing up, there wasn’t fetched water from and a couple much Bulgarian culture in our of trees he climbed remained. I suburban house, but there was was in no hurry to return. banitsa, a flaky, cheesy tradition- It wasn’t until after both my al Bulgarian pastry, and nightly dad and I were several years out Bulgarian lessons for my young- from brutal-but-successful treat- er brother and myself from my ment for cancer (melanoma for dad. My mom, a Baltimorean him; breast for me) and he was 82 whose sweet tooth crossed cul- that I decided I wanted to go tures, never stopped baking the back. Fifteen years had passed. A former, but the latter ended one more mature traveler and daugh- night in second grade when I told ter (although still unable to speak my dad, “This is your language, Bulgarian), I instigated the trip. not mine.” My brother Rob and my mom, When he lived in Bulgaria, my neither of whom had been to dad never went to Plovdiv or Bulgaria before, quickly an- Veliko Tarnovo. His family lived nounced they were coming too. in Perilovets, a farming village in “We have to make it the ultimate the country’s northwestern cor- homecoming for dad — to share ner, near its borders with Roma- his birthplace and heritage with nia and present-day Serbia. He his American family, all togeth- did go to Vidin, a port city on the er,” my mom said. “It just has to Danube River about 30 miles DINA MISHEV FOR THE WASHINGTON POST be all of us!” from his village that, in a cart The city of Plovdiv in Bulgaria is built on six hills, including , where a group of people gather to watch the sunset. SEE BULGARIA ON F6

If you go ROMANIA WHERE TO STAY Hotel Evmolpia SERBIA 4 Pernik St., Plovdiv Winner by association. 011-359-32-957-795 Sofia hotelevmolpia.com BULGARIA Black KOSOVO Sea A boutique hotel in the city’s with antique-filled rooms and Plovdiv a daily happy hour with free wine NORTH 100 MILES MACEDONIA and cheese; walking distance from TURKEY many of the city’s historic sites. Double rooms, including breakfast, from about $67 per night. THE WASHINGTON POST

81/2 Art Guest House 15-17 Gen. Gurko St., Plovdiv Plovdiv open at 2 p.m. daily from October The Washington Post 011-359-32-396-699 011-359-878-313-995 through April. No reservations required. Free. artguesthouse.com/en catandmouse.bg/bar Ancient Theatre of Seven whimsical rooms, some with Several beers, including locally balconies, in the heart of Old Town. brewed ones, are on tap at this bar 4000 Tsentar, Plovdiv Rooms, including breakfast, from specializing in craft brews; more 011-359-03-262-1040 is the #1 print and online about $81 per night. than 100 beers from around the A landslide in 1970 revealed a Hotel Gurko world — Belgium, Czech Republic, Roman theater in the middle of 33 Gurko St., Veliko Tarnovo Germany, Britain, Serbia — Plovdiv’s Old Town that was built in available by the bottle. Beers from 011-359-887-858-965 the 1st century. After a lengthy about $3. restoration, this theater is among source among private hotel-gurko.com Gurko Tavern the best-preserved Roman A 21-room hotel constructed of 33 Gurko St., Veliko Tarnovo theaters in existence. Concerts stone and timber in Veliko and events are held here in the 011-359-887-858-965 Tarnovo’s Old Town with rooms summer. Open 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. overlooking the Asenevtsi hotel-gurko.com daily April through October and Monument, Yantra River and Hearty, meaty meals like spicy pork 9 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. November association opinion Tsarevets. Rooms, including stew, bread stuffed with chicken through March. Entrance about $3 breakfast, from about $53 per and pork ribs with polenta in a for all ages. night. cozy, stone-floored tavern on a Bulgaria Wine Tours cobblestone street above the WHERE TO EAT Plovdiv Hemingway Restaurant Yantra River and opposite the leaders nationally 011-359-888-487-113 10 Gurko St., Plovdiv Asenevtsi Monument. Open 7:30 a.m. to 10 p.m. daily. Entrees bulgariawinetours.com 011-359-89-449-0636 from about $6. Half-, full- and multiday tours in hemingway.bg/en Restaurant Asenevci English, with tastings, to several of Traditional Bulgarian ingredients 7 Stamboliiski St., Veliko Tarnovo the 20-some boutique wineries in like veal, lamb and peppers are the surrounding Thracian Valley. 011-359-88-918-0111 prepared with a modern and Tours pick you up at your hotel and sophisticated twist; there’s also a restorantasenevci.com are available daily with advance wide selection of Bulgarian Sit in front of the fireplace (winter) reservation; custom tours also cheeses and wines, including some or on the terrace (summer) and available. Tours run from about made from the indigenous mavrud enjoy Bulgarian nouveau cuisine as $72 (half-day) to $95 per person grape. Entrees from about $8. well as pastas and pizza. Open for excursions with three or more Pavaj noon to 3 p.m. daily for lunch and people. Otherwise, about $90 to 7 Zlatarska St., Plovdiv 5:30 to 9 p.m. for dinner. Entrees $112. from about $7. 011-359-87-811-1876 facebook.com/pavaj.plovdiv WHAT TO DO INFORMATION Regional specialties like spare ribs Free Plovdiv Tour and stuffed eggplant highlight local visitbulgaria.com ingredients in a cozy yet trendy Tours start at Plovdiv City Hall, space in the Kapana District. If 4000 Tsentar KLMNO you’re going to try rakia, 011-359-886-993-977 D.M. considered Bulgaria’s national freeplovdivtour.com drink, this is the place to do it Local guides lead two-hour walking because of its large selection. tours (in English) to many of the Make sure to save room for city’s most historic sites while Erdos & Morgan Opinion Leaders Study, 2018 dessert. Entrees from about $8. giving a history lesson of the area.  For the author’s full list of Cat & Mouse Tours start at 11 a.m. and 6 p.m. Bulgaria recommendations,

14 Hristo Dyukmedzhiev St., daily from May through September; visit wapo.st/travel N0120C 3x10.5 F6 EZ EE K THE WASHINGTON POST . SUNDAY, JULY 7, 2019 ‘Hons n’ Roses’ Bulgarian tour stops at cultural hot spots

BULGARIA FROM F3 Bulgarian flavor,” he says. He recognizes the vestiges of former I had matching gray, long- Communist rule in its big gray sleeve T-shirts made. Screen multistory apartment buildings, printed on the back, in a nod to but likes that newly remodeled our Bulgarian and Baltimorean buildings — and newly excavated roots, is a riff on the Guns N’ ruins — are now the focus. Roses logo: “Hons n’ Roses — The On our last evening in Plovdiv, Mishevs do Bulgaria.” (“Hons” my mom, Rob and I walk up to are a very Baltimore thing; Bul- the broad, flat summit of our hill, garia is well known for its rose called Nebet Tepe, to watch the perfume.) sunset. We also find ruins of The “Hons n’ Roses” tour in- dwellings and that cludes seeing Plovdiv and Tarno- predate the birth of Christ. We’re vo before ending with a visit to not a selfie family, but standing Perilovets and the family. on the rubble of an ancient wall at the hill’s edge, we snap one. Wine, beer and history Since it is the Capital of Cul- Tales of palaces — and a cow ture, Plovdiv is our first stop. Our My dad knows more about first destination in the city is a Veliko Tarnovo’s history than Plo- gatehouse at the entrance to the vdiv’s. Most of the latter’s ruins city’s Old Town. Only local resi- were discovered and studied af- dents, business owners and ter he fled the country. The for- guests at the several boutique mer’s history is the Bulgarian hotels here are allowed to drive history he learned in the one- this UNESCO World Heritage room Perilovets schoolhouse. site’s narrow, cobbled streets Tarnovo was the country’s capital lined with 19th-century homes during the Second Bulgarian Em- built in the top-heavy Bulgarian pire (1185-1393) and also at the National Revival style. (At the beginning of the Third Bulgarian time, taxes were assessed on a Empire in 1878 when Bulgaria home’s footprint, so the ground won its freedom after almost 500 level was made as small as possi- years of Ottoman rule. ble.) My dad knows the names of Checking into the Hotel Ev- some of the 19th-century rebels molpia — Evmolpia was this that Tarnovo’s Monument to city’s name when it was a Thra- Hanged Rebels honors for advo- cian settlement in the Late cating (and fighting for) Bulgar- Bronze Age (1200- 500 B.C.) — ian independence from the Otto- we’re offered local cheese and man Empire. The constitution wine. Archaeological evidence that governed the country when shows grapes have been grown guage it means doing nothing or he was born was drafted and and wine made in this area for being idle. In Bulgaria, aylyak is signed in the white, cross-shaped more than 3,000 years. Today, slightly different; here it refers to building down the street from there are about 20 vineyards and a lifestyle that cultivates and our hotel. (Today, this building is wineries within an hour’s drive of celebrates an easygoing, unhur- the Museum of the Bulgarian Plovdiv. ried attitude (as in, the opposite Revival and Constituent Assem- At Hotel Evmolpia, I try a red of farm life). Within Bulgaria, it is bly.) He tells us about Russian made from the local grape variety generally held that Plovdivians Gen. Iosif Gurko, for whom our mavrud. It’s heavy and I taste do aylyak best. hotel is named. (Gurko’s army cherries and blackberries. While locals love aylyak, it is liberated Veliko Tarnovo from There are also local chardon- also blamed for the delay in the the on July 7, nays, merlots and cabernet sauvi- refurbishment of Plovdiv’s Cen- 1877.) He tells us the four Ase- gnons available. tral Square, which was not fin- nevtsi Monument horsemen lib- Adjacent to the Old Town is the ished in time for the Capital of erated Bulgaria from the Byzan- formerly derelict, now trendy, Culture opening ceremony in tine Empire in the 12th century, Kapana District, a maze of tight, January. I think it makes more then ruled it as czars for most of winding streets. (Kapana means sense to blame the Romans, the next century. “the trap” in Bulgarian.) We Macedonians or Even without my dad’s details quickly get lost, and that’s fine. though: It seems you cannot dig a about the Bulgarian czars who Around one corner there’s the hole in Plovdiv without hitting a lived in grand palaces on Tsare- Hipster Hostel and an art gallery ruin from one of these civiliza- vets hill, the view of it from the selling products made from felt. tions. Beneath almost the entire sky walk, a glass-bottomed view- Around the next corner is a giant one-mile length of the shopping ing platform that stretches out spray-painted mural of an alliga- and pedestrian street Knyaz Al- between buildings above the Yan- tor with a heart-shaped diamond exander I in the center of the city tra River, are impressive. in its toothy mouth being ridden is a Roman stadium built at the Little is left of the palaces but by a bored-looking man wearing beginning of the 2nd century their foundations. A wall built to a turtleneck. when the city was known as fortify the hill still stands. Its It is one of my mom’s life Trimontium. Several sections of watchtowers are crenelated and quests to try as many beers as it have been excavated, including the wall itself is as thick as 12 feet possible. So when we turn yet a seating area you can see in the in some places. another of Kapana’s corners and basement of the clothing store Walking down Samovodska find Cat & Mouse (Kotka i Mishka H&M and, in the middle of Dzhu- Charshiya street, which is home in Bulgarian), a bar with more maya Square, colonnades and the to the studios and galleries of than 100 beers from around the stadium’s northern end. For bet- many local artisans, we hear world and three of its own brews, ter or worse, most of Bulgaria’s about my dad’s favorite cow, we stop. Tasting each of the latter, ruins are eminently accessible Mininkata (“little one”). He says you’d never know the bar and and here you can sit in the same she was famous because she was brewery was founded to finance a seats where, 2,000 years ago, an award-winning milk pro- website dedicated to independ- 30,000 people gathered to watch ducer, and that, because of her, ent journalism, Pod Tepeto (“Un- chariot races. his father, whom my brother and der the Hill”), and not only out of Uphill from our hotel is the I called “Dedo,” went to jail. “The a love of beer. Ancient Theater of Philippopolis. Soviets came for her and Dedo We settle in with our drinks at Built at the end of the 1st century, refused to let her go, so they put an outside table from which we it was used for performances for Dedo in jail and the family had to can see three different spray- several hundred years, aban- pay a huge ransom to have him painted murals, two boutiques doned after a fire and forgotten freed,” my dad says. selling a mix of locally made until a landslide in the 1970s Over our drinks at the Ase- clothing and home accessories revealed a section of it. The nevtsi Monument, after we’ve and three or four art galleries/ Bulgarian Conservation School finished making the case for studios. The businesses are on spent 10 years restoring it and in Tarnovo as Bulgaria’s next Euro- the ground levels of colorful, 1981 it reopened as a perform- pean Capital of Culture, I thank two-story buildings with pen- ance space that has become re- my dad for sharing his history nant flags strung between them. nowned for its acoustics. Sadly with us and tell him I’m sorry I The building next to Cat & Mouse PHOTOS BY DINA MISHEV FOR THE WASHINGTON POST there are no rock concerts, op- was such a punk back in second is a cafe named Central Perk, TOP: Veliko Tarnovo is located more than 200 miles from where the author’s father grew up. It eras or master Zumba classes grade. styled to look like the cafe of that is known for red-roofed homes, cobblestone streets and the Yantra River. being held while we’re here. Thankfully, when it’s time to name from the TV show ABOVE: The author’s father, who was born in Bulgaria but fled the country at 14, looks at the This fall, restoration work on get another round of drinks, the “Friends.” Latte- and espresso- Asenevtsi Monument, which commemorates the uprising that led to the country’s liberation. more than 20,000 square feet of bartender speaks English. sipping customers speaking intricate mosaics in the 1,800- French, German, English and year-old Bishop’s Basilica should [email protected] Bulgarian relax here in sofas and be finished. armchairs. My dad is surprised by the Mishev is a writer based in Jackson have a word for this vitality of Plovdiv and its people. Hole, Wyo. Her website is scene: “aylyak.” Aylyak is a word “It measures up to a modern dinamishev.com. Follow her on taken from Turkish; in that lan- European city, but still retains its Instagram @dinamishev.

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