"The world is a bridge over which passes the road of the king and the pauper"
So true, isn't it?
That quote is an English translation from the beautiful inscription in old Turkish language, carved in the vertical stone part of the stone plate bench found on the bridge.
Now let me start from the beginning :)
We went to Harmanli, a city in Southeastern Bulgaria, for a calm and slow walk. We explored the center with its square and checked a few landmarks. In the middle of the week, that was indeed a calm and crowd-less experience :)
In the last few years, Harmanli is known for the huge refugee campus. Also, what I love about it too is that there are plenty of wineries around, as Sakar mountain provides excellent conditions for the vineyards. I could say with a big pleasure that more and more people of all ages return to producing great wines there and that business gets more important by the day.
The biggest part of our walk was around the old Humpback bridge.
I guess it is obvious why it was called like that.
Now-a-days, it is a dry bridge, meaning there is no river flowing under it, as it was redirected a long time ago. The area has been turned into a park.
To get to the bridge, we had to park near the local police station. Luckily, I found a free parking slot just twenty meters away from it. There is a narrow street, leading to the bridge, between the police station and the local history museum, the building in green and white, visible to the left of the bridge.
So that was my first view of it:
... and that was the only human being we encountered while we explored the bridge from all sides. From above and below too :)
That tall stone plates thing to the right is the bench I have mentioned above. That's an interesting architectural feature, to put a bench on the top of the bridge so there are a couple of places to sit and observe all the traffic.
Its memorial part is so beautiful too:
Next to it, this info board is installed, with a few history facts:
It felt lovely to walk on the pavement of that old bridge, restored by keeping whatever has left of its original stone parts. The park was also almost empty in that part of the day and the air was crystal clear. What a pleasant place to walk and see something new and old at the same time!
The back of the history museum and a partial view of the stone bench as well:
To the North of the bridge, the county market-place could be seen, also empty in the middle of the week:
Some traces of other human activity:
Here's another view with the bridge, the police station and the history museum of Harmali.
Our ancestors had known how to construct bridges. I can tell this building will outlive us all!
It was awesome to be able to walk around and see the bridge from all its sides indeed!
Low-angle view of the bench as we went under the bridge:
Not only solid, but beautiful too...
Look who came to check up on us. However, as unfortunately we were not bringing any food with us, that poor stray dog lost interest in a few minutes :)
lastly, I took a closer look at the building stone blocks of the bridge. Beautiful sediment rocks and I could clearly see the shapes of the fossils.
So probably long, long time ago, here was the bottom of a sea.
Now trust me or not, I could almost smell the aroma of the sea winds. And Harmanli is about 200 km away from the shores of Black Sea...
There isn't much info about the bridge online, probably those two info boards at the bridge shed all known facts and history.
I could only find for you a very short Wiki page, available only in Bulgarian:
https://bg.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%93%D1%8A%D1%80%D0%B1%D0%B0%D0%B2%D0%B8%D1%8F%D1%82_%D0%BC%D0%BE%D1%81%D1%82
I have not used any text from it here, as I wanted to focus on my personal side and my own perceptions from that lovely day. Moreover, presently the online translators are capable enough to provide a proper English translation, if the reader is interested.
Check out that wiki page, though, as there you will see an old black and white photo from 1930 with the river still flowing under the bridge.
Another interesting aspect of the quote is that the original word for the "pauper" from the carved inscription is "dervishin" which in Bulgarian means both a poor man and a Mohammedan monk.
I love those walk where I see and learn new interesting stuff! Do you?
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