Photographs by Asen Irinchev.

During our Vitosha filming trip we visited the Boyana Church, which is a cultural and national treasure.

Frescos in this Church are known to be cutting edge for the time when they were created and are regarded as major influence in the styles that later appear in Europe.

” The frescoes are genuine masterpieces with a flawless technique, psychological depth, complexity and realism. Boyana is the only and the most impressive wholly preserved monument of the Turnovo School of Painting from the 13th century.

According to many leading experts, the world famous frescoes in the Boyana Church played an important role in the development of mediaeval Bulgarian and European painting.”
http://www.boyanachurch.org/historyen.html

To preserve the fresco the visitor’s are not allowed to go inside the church. The tourist groups can only see it from the outside.

To my surprise the courtyard had beutifully preserved old pines, which I have never seen in Vitosha before. (They look like the trees you see on the West Coast of Canada where I live now) It was not just the church that stood as a treasure from the past, but the trees around it brought a grounding magical sense to the whole place.

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