It was hard to find a translation of the Bulgarian name for this place. Побити камъни in Cyrillic, it means 'stone that were battered into place' by some force. I also read 'The Stone Forest' on the map but I was not happy with it. Although it does look like one, doesn't it?

Ask Groot!

I am Groot.

See?

The area is not far from the Shumen - Varna highway, much closer to Varna. And you have to get off the highway and on a much smaller road near the village of Slunchevo. Then go south for a few kilometers.

I started from Shumen that morning, though, before sunrise. I was already sick (not sleeping for a night, in winter, and then travelling seven hours by train does that to me from time to time... as you will also see in one of my next stories) and with a bad cough and soar throat so I went through my photography plan with less excitement than usual. Saving both physical and mental energy, yet still moving. It was the first and so far only time that I visited the place, so I had to do the best I could.

That land has been part of the bottom of the sea during some old geological age. And it shows. Terrain tells stories. Nearby hills are shaped as if by water although now they are at least twenty kilometers inland. It was most likely water that shaped Groot and his neighbors as well.

It was wind that shaped me. I had a ride by car from the town of Shumen to the spot and then again from there to the major port of Varna. I was about to continue by train through the mountain and to my home town of Karnobat for a short visit to my family. Before the train, though, I had time enough to go for a walk and I decided to get by the harbor and go see a lighthouse or something.

I had fever during the voyage by the train and I thought it was the longest journey I had ever made. Which felt true until next day when I had to catch another train back to Sofia. With even worse fever and cough.

What was I writing about? Oh, yeah, I remember I saw some standing stones, too...

... And a lighthouse.