Today, knowing what time it is becomes a problem only when your phone battery dies and there is no one around to ask. For previous generations it was different.
For millennia, people measured their days and nights by the movement of the sun and stars, or waited for a rooster to crow.
The epic wars fought in the summer of 2026 all across social media over the historical accuracy of Christopher Nolan's adaptation of The Odyssey should have taught us something. Myths and poetry are often inspired by historical events and places. They are sometimes backed by archaeological finds. But they are neither history, nor archaeology. They live in a separate realm; mistaking a millennia-old poem and a 21st century film for a history textbook is… beside the point.
Strange rocks and human imagination have been deeply linked since the first Homo sapiens squinted at some weirdly-shaped peaks and wondered why they looked the way they did. In the millennia that have passed since then, natural rock phenomena have been turned into shrines to pagan deities, Christian saints and Muslim sages. Legends, often bloody and brutal, have been invented about their origins.
The Stone Mushrooms, near the Rhodope village of Beli Plast, are a case in point.
Seasoned ancient mariners caught in a storm along the west Black Sea coast would become weary when they saw a light, indicating the nearby presence of terra firma. This did not always mean that there was a safe haven nearby. Sometimes, people living on the shore would set fires along treacherous cliffs to lure hapless ships to their demise. Then they would rob the wreck.
In the spring of 335 BC, Alexander III, the new king of Macedon, was climbing a hill in Thrace. It was not an ordinary hill, but a rocky stronghold of fortifications, houses and towers, protecting something famed across the ancient world: the Thracian sanctuary of Dionysus. There, the god's will was revealed when wine was poured onto the flames of a sacred altar – one that had never been known to fail in its predictions.
Мen dressed in early 20th century military uniforms, patriotic songs and speeches, lots of banners and grilled meat stalls: the people who flock to a pristine meadow, overshadowed by a sombre stone monument in the Strandzha, in the third weekend of August, are here for a purpose.
Their annual gathering, at Petrova Niva, or Peter's Field, at a picturesque bend of the Veleka River, marks a heroic and traumatic event in Bulgarian history, the St Elijah-Transfiguration Uprising.
A small, neat bag full with dried lavender: the souvenir is ubiquitous in Mediterranean countries. It should be in the portfolio of Bulgarian souvenirs, too, along with vials of rose water. For over a decade now, this country has been the world's leader in production of fine lavender.
Тhe Black Sea is a geographical curiosity. Until recently (in geological terms), it was a big lake locked between Europe and Asia, gorging on the waters of scores of rivers. About 6,500 to 7,500 years ago, it filled to the brim, broke through what would become the Dardanelles Straights and connected to the Mediterranean. As its water levels fluctuated up and down, wind blew and rain poured, the cliffs on the new shoreline were relentlessly eaten, beaten and broken. In some places, this neverending process exposed to the elements ancient rocks that had lain buried for aeons.
Small villages and clusters of old, abandoned houses define the Stara Planina mountains around Troyan. Gumoshtnik, whose name is hard to pronounce even for Bulgarians, is one of them. A quiet place, its streets are largely empty and its population is only a fraction of what it was a century ago. The churchyard looks like churchyards across Bulgaria: two monuments to fallen soldiers, an old school and a locked church.
The path down to the grotto drops steeply through oak and hornbeam. By the time you reach the ravine floor the sky has almost disappeared. The light here is greenish and perpetual, unchanged whether it is morning or afternoon, July or October. Water drips somewhere ahead. The air smells of wet stone and something older – soil, perhaps, or time itself.