The Sanctuary of the Nymphs and Aphrodite, Bulgaria (20 photos)

Only few kilometers away from Dimitrovgrad one can find the only preserved nympheum in Bulgaria. The place is actually quite close to the place I've been living in the last few months so we finally decided to go visit it. The sanctuary is near the village of Kasnakovo, close to the old international road E80. This historic location is not well known but in my opinion is an interesting place to visit and of course, covered in mystery. Each of those destinations have its own legend and I am going to share it with you below shortly...

Let me start with this panoramic photo:

As you can see, the sanctuary is located on a vast meadow next to an abundant Karst spring. The meadow is enclosed in a semicircle of limestone rocks. From these rocks the springs are drained and collected in 3 pools, one central and two side wells. The coolness that the springs and shades of the grown trees carry, make this place a pleasure to walk and relax...

We decided to go first to the central course, a lovely architectural composition with the natural rocks in the base of the spring.

There is an inscription on the beautiful arc:

After some research, I found out that according the archaeologists, the inscription says something close to: "Good luck! Titus Fla­vi­us Beyt­yuk­ent Esben­er­i­os and his wife Clau­dia Mon­tana made and consecrated this spring to the nymphs and Aph­ro­di­te."

So this sanctuary is from II century and probably the buildings around it are from III-IV. Yes, Bulgaria is full of history! This is a marble plate put by the Ministry of Culture few decades ago, totally ruining a part of the arch, in my opinion!

Here are the side wells:

Getting close to the left one we saw the Symbol of Sun, yeah, it may look familiar in a negative way but the direction is the opposite actually ;)

Lovely marble decorations, found only at the Eastern well.

I almost jumped in the air due to this naked tree root, LMAO! It's a poplar, I think.

There are ongoing archaeology excavations at the meadow in front of the sanctuary:

Have you seen the evening sky? It was a real light show, making the experience even better:

We saw the sigh saying "Roman Vila" and went to see it.

One could tell it was luxurious at the times... Those Romans, they knew how to properly live :)

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Let me note here, that there is a nice car parking very close to the place and an information center. It was closed at the evening we visited the sanctuary as it was a business day. I suppose it is open only at the weekends. Nice place to rest at the parking:

Now here is the legend I promised to share with you ;)

Titus once had a very strange dream, a nymph of unearthly beauty appeared to him. She offered divine love, but he resist­ed the temp­ta­tion. During the sanc­tu­ary inauguration, that same nymph appeared in front of the crowd and himself and tried to lure Titus with eternal life and love. He refused by saying he will stay faithful to his wife who has waited him for 30 years. Then, the nymph suddenly turned into stone and stood as a sanc­tu­ary guard many years aft­er, a symbol of true love.

Beautiful one, isn't it?

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On our way back, we saw this dry dead tree with an amazing mushroom growing:

Not sure if it's edible do you know? :)

Thank you for your time, attention and support, I hope you've enjoyed this short travel-photo-story!

Stay tuned for more :)

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