I’ve just come back from a short (10 days) vacation visiting my parents back in Bulgaria. It was an unplanned spontaneous holiday and it turned out to be packed with good vibes and fun times. Last year, I went for 3 weeks and somehow ended up being (different kinds of) sick for all but 3-4 days, so I was quite worried it may happen again. Thankfully my faith in vacations was restored 😅

The most memorable part (as usual) was going up to the mountains for a couple of days. As I’ve mentioned before, the thing I miss the most in Denmark is mountains (and hotter climate), so I take every chance I get to spend time up there.

We went to an are called “Studenets” (Студенец or “The cold place”) in the Rhodope mountains which is only about an hour drive from my hometown (Plovdiv). When I was a kid we always went there for our summer vacations, so it’s always been special to me.

Back then there weren’t that many places to go and even fewer were affordable. In those days it was quite common for people to vacation at their job’s “holiday home” (there really isn’t a word in English for “почивна станция” 😅 ) These were a leftover concept from the “socialist era” when every work place owned a couple of holiday homes (from small cabins to massive hotels), where the workers could get a one- two weeks of vacation, with the food included for quite cheap. I’m not even sure if there were other ways to go on vacation in the early 90-s, but it was the only way my family went on vacation. Well camping did exist and so did mountain hostels, but my parents weren’t too keen on a rougher vacation, especially with a kid, so I didn’t try any of these until my 20-s.

You could usually chose between going to the sea side or the mountains. I remember going to the sea side few times when I was very young, but I never liked it there. My mom thinks it’s because I got scared by the jellyfish, but all I can remember is that it smelled bad and water getting into my nose 🐳 And so most of my childhood vacations were spent at the “holiday hotel for the railway workers” at Studenets. My mom worked for the national railway company back then, and so had access to this particular holiday home. Early on we also went to the hotel owned by my father’s then place of work in another mountain area, but that didn’t last long as that company was dissolved, because it no longer served a purpose in a decentralised economy (it was a kind of a national accounting firm… or something… I was too young to understand what my parents did at the time 😅).

I’ve always loved Studenets, even if I got a bit bored with it at times. Being up there always inspired me. All I wanted to do was hike all day and soak the beauty of the mountains. The smell of pines will forever be amongst my most favourite, it always brings up such a nostalgic cosy and homey feeling! I believe the reason why I first became interested in drawing was so that I can preserve a piece of nature’s beauty in my memory or so I can maybe explain to someone how I feel when I’m up there.

I also loved picking herbs and studying my parent’s beautifully illustrated book on them, foraging for blueberries, raspberries and the occasional strawberries. Though foraging mostly bored me back then, I loved hiking and discovering new trails the most. I was always inspired to make up stories about girls getting lost in forests and having magical adventures.

I always day dreamed about one day owning a cute little cabin up there or anywhere in the mountains, so that I never have to leave. I always cried when we had to go back home to the city. Even when I went to summer school, most kids were the happiest when they got to go back, while I hated that moment. One time when we were in the mountains in early spring heavy snow fell the night before we had to leave. Everyone were panicking and I was secretly wishing it keeps snowing so that we must stay.

The Studenets area always felt like home to me and is still so dear to my heart, but every time I visit now I get sad to see what is happening to it. Many of the company holiday homes from that time have been abandoned and are slowly falling in disrepair as things are so different now and their owners have no interest or desire to do anything with them. Such a waste! In the meantime more and more new private villas and hotels are being built every year with no regard for nature. It is way too easy now for anyone with money to build anything they want and more often than not they have no concerns for the environment. Big building projects sometimes stay abandoned when those undertaking them ran out of money. They just leave huge piles of concrete in the middle of the forest. No one cares.

Ski slopes are built everywhere and huge almost towns grow around them. It is short-sighted even from commercial perspective, because there will never be as many tourists as there are new hotels and even if there were would they really want to go from the concrete jungle of the city to another loud and crowded one that’s just the same, only 1000m above sea level. Nature is being lost. Big chunks of the forest are barred and fenced, there’s huge signs for “private property” everywhere, guarded by big angry dogs.

The mountain seems to no longer be a place for regular people just looking to relax. It no longer feels like an open welcoming space, now it’s just another place you need money to go to. Well, people still camp. There were a ton of people camping during the weekend and unfortunately they seemed as uncaring as those building huge houses and hotels. They only seemed concerned with their own good time. Littering, lighting fires, even though it’s been a dry season and there were warnings for forest fires. I felt like people are actively set on destroying the mountains rather than enjoying them. Biting a piece of nature, each as big as they can chew, and spitting it out as soon as they no longer wanted it or could keep it. Everyone just taking, while also trying to prevent others from being able to enjoy it.

Even though I always dreamt of owning a little cabin in the mountains, all this made me think if it’s right at all for mountains (or nature in general) to be owned. If people can be trusted to properly care for it and if it’s fair or reasonable for some to take a piece for themselves while locking others out.

I still loved my time in the mountains, especially hiking on trails that took us further from the noise of people and the fences and the ugly big houses. But I miss how it all was many years ago when I was a kid. Not because I see everything in the past through rose coloured glasses, but because it was quitter, cleaner and more wild back then, as I believe it is supposed to be. I’m not sure it will ever be that way again… but I’d be happy to be wrong.

While I was away, as it often happens, my mind was full of ideas, inspiration and energy to make new things and do everything I needed to do in my business back home. But, once I was back at my desk and trying to actually get into it, all the motivation was gone 😅 My first day back was full of setbacks, including loosing at least an hour (I’m not entirely sure) of work due to the program crashing and the working file being corrupted.

Oh well…

Thankfully things are slowly going back to normal now. I’ve been experimenting with a new routine. I wake up few hours earlier than usual (around 6am) and go for an extended morning walk into the fields, come back home, have breakfast and start the day around my usual time (10 am -ish). It’s been really energising so far, but it’s only my third day, so it’s too soon to know if this will last and how sustainable it will be. So far so good…

And how are things for you? Have you had a vacation this year and how has it affected you?