Evening 7: Unification Day in Veliko Tarnovo

Our two-night stay in Veliko Tarnovo coincides with Unification Day in Bulgaria, celebrating the unification of Eastern Rumelia and Bulgaria in 1885. It's a national holiday which falls on September 6 and in Veliko Tarnovo happens to feature an elaborate sound-and-light show.

We set off in the evening and straightaway saw that the fountains in our nearby park were illuminated after darkness had fallen:

They colours changed every few seconds:

We'd soon paced through the town, past the Hanged Rebels Memorial, which looked a lot more noticeable in the dark:

Within a few minutes we caught a glimpse of the fortress in the distance:

We needed to get a lot closer, which meant passing the cathedral:

Some of the fortress walls were extremely bright:

Eventually we reached the entrance and were standing with a crowd:

The lights were dimmed...

... and then various sections were lit up...

... one after the other...

... until the whole complex was glowing:

We were spoilt for choice with colourschemes:

Soon the fortress was shooting lasers:

Until hitting the best colourscheme of all:

After that, the scene turned red and the sound recording accompanying the display stopped:

You can get to experience a similar display thanks to a recording which somebody uploaded:

And with that, we and the thousands of other people watching dispersed.

Today's been a long day but fortunately we don't have to check out until noon tomorrow for our afternoon trip to Bucharest, and the bus station is only a two-minute walk away, so we can have a lie-in in the morning to recover before heading on our first ever visit to Romania!