After a nice breakfast we were ready to go to the Rojen monastery. Once again. A great place. This one is much better than the Rilski monastery to go to. If you are not a regular tourist and need something a little bit different for your trip – go there. The views to the mountains are stunning

The next goal for Monday was Kovachevica. But before that we have to cross a mountain pass. Winding roads, sometimes you think that nothing is protecting you from the abyss, that starts just where the asphalt ends. Here and there you can see workers on the road – at least this is a good sign. And one and a half hours later we are in Kovachevica (Ковачевица). It’s one of the most beautiful Bulgarian villages with houses from 18-19 century, exclusively made out of stone – even the roofs. Small cobbled streets can be seen all around the village – most of them I think are not even accessible with a normal car. We even took a small hike to the end of the village. Then a good lunch there – the best fried potatoes we had on our trip.

The day was already going to its end, so we had to find a place to sleep. Since the cave Dyavolsko gyrlo (Дяволско гърло, Devil’s throat) was our next goes – why not sleep in Trigrad. One of the legends says the name of the village comes from the Thracian “Tri ibrie” (Three cities, Три града). It’s famous for the cave, I mentioned above, the Yagodinska cave, the Trigrad gorge (second longest in Bulgaria – 3 km) and the Buinovo gorge (the longest in Bulgaria – 6 km I think). It’s a bit scary the first time you go there – Extremely narrow road…. and then you see a sign “One lane road with opposite direction traffic”. Well, this makes you think and drive as slow as possible.

Anyways, to Trigrad – we found a nice family hotel, called “Triibria” (by the name of the city in Thracian). Very polite owner, nice rooms – what more do you need to have a good rest. In the morning we understood that they had a good cook too – we ordered some breakfast, which was delicious. This made us a bit sorry we didn’t stay for dinner there. Well…. next time.

So, this must be it. The third day already of our trip. I’ll continue with the next day soon.

Me, Vescho and Marto in fron of the Bachkovo monastery

The second part of our group was a little bit late (overslept ), so we waited for them to come and look around the monastery. While we were there we enjoyed the local views, the sound of the nearby river, etc.

Next object – the impressive Wonderful Bridges. Two rock phenomenas in Bulgaria that attract lots of visitors each year.

Wonderful bridges

We couldn’t miss the opportunity to buy some local cheese and eat a local pastry called ‘prepitenichka’ – kind of a dough pancake with cheese or jam in it.

Third for the day was Rojen observatory. We reached it just as it was about to start raining again. Waited about 15 minutes and got in for a guided tour.

Rojen observatory

Some interesting facts, a walk around, some wonderful views from the top of the tower and an hour later we took off from Rojen. And then it started raining – it was raining cats and dogs, as it’s said. The fourth object of our trip (Pamporovo) we missed because of the rain. Instead we headed on the line Shiroka Lyka – Trigrad to settle for the evening. In Shiroka Lyka we stopped for a meal. We waited for too long but finally we tried the rodopian specialty – Patatnik. Delicious!!! What was in front of us was a ride across the Trigrad gorge – beautiful river canyon. Tiny roads, but instead – what a beauty it was. A couple of hours wandering because we didn’t book anything for the evening – and we settled in Teshel: a small village, just standing between our targets for the third day.

Day 3 – May 4th

I’m getting kinda lazy to describe in details Instead I’ll just move on to the goals for the day:

Devils throat – there was the highest cave waterfall in Bulgaria: 60 m they say. We couldn’t exactly see it, but we heard it. Definitely!

Devils throat

In front of the we heard a Rodopi bagpipe. Native!

Yagodinska cave – this one was very impressive. Its length (the guided part) is 1.1 km and the guides were very professional – they mixed interesting facts for the cave with humor/jokes. It’s a fun way to learn something and to stay focused during the whole tour of 45 minutes.

Perperikon – Perperikon was the final for our trip. We got late for it and went there just after 5.30 pm. No problem, all the visitors were gone, so we could enjoy it with only a bunch of crazy people like us . Ancient thracian city with well preserved ruins. Interesting place, has some sort of nice vibe in it.

Parts of Perperikon

After all of this it was already about 6:30 pm and we had about 450 km trip back to Rousse. Exhausting, but still – about 2:30 am in the next morning we were back. After about 1200 km road trip, many wonderful sights, three nice days of adventures.

More photos from the trip can be seen in my Picasa Web Albums.