Well, let’s see – 6 day autotrip with about 2000 km. around Bulgaria

The route was something like that

1. Day 1 – Ruse, Sofia, Rila monastery, Sandanski (where we slept because Melnik was fully reserved for the night)
2. Day 2 – Sandanski, Petrich (Rupite), Samuilova fortress, Melnik, Rozhen monastery, Pazardzhik (where we slept in an awful hotel, named with the great name Elbrus)
3. Day 3 – Pazardzhik, via a small curvy road with some dams, Trigrad gorge and the two caves nearby (Yagodinska cave, Dyavolsko gyrlo cave), Shiroka lyka (where we almost got to see the  traditional Bulgarian kukeri festival – something like westerners Helloween ), Bachkovo monastery
4. Day 4 – Bachkovo monastery, Asenova fortress (which was closed due to the snowstorm that started previous night), Plovdiv (the old city and the Amphitheater), Panagyurishte (where we initially intended to sleep, but didn’t find appealing), Strelcha (where we stumbled on a Thracian tomb and took a look at), Koprivshtitsa
5. Day 5 – Koprivshtitsa, Klisura, Sopot, Karlovo, Kalofer, Koprivshtitsa – all revival Bulgarian cities. And we decided to stay in Koprivshtitsa because the hotel we were staying was so great, and the city itself is lovely.
6. Day 6 (Final) – Koprivshtitsa, Kazanlyk (where we saw the Unesco thracian tomb), The ‘Hainboaz’ mountain pass (due to Shipka pass being closed from sliding trucks and snow), Veliko Tyrnovo, Ruse

In other words – 6 great days with all kinds of weather, but mostly funny. I’ll allow myself to post a link to the Picasa Web Galleries again…. ~HERE~

Edit: I’m uploading a map of the trip:

Well, this short story comes a little late, but as always I have my excuse – lots of work, kinda have common cold, etc. OK, I’m cutting the bullshit off….

We (me, Katya, Iliyan and Niki) started with a 7 hour train trip to Sofia and then 3 1/2 hour bus trip to Bansko. Almost 12 hours after the start we landed in the resort town and got a taxi to Vihren hut. It was lunch time, so we had something to eat, made some coffee and headed for a walk around. A walk is a good name for a 3 hour trip across two lakes: Okoto (The Eye) and Muratovo lake… with some stunning views of peaks around. We got back to the hut at about 5 pm. Dinner, some talking around with other visitors, etc… and we were off to bed at 10 pm. Cold evening, the heating in the bedrooms was poor….

Read more ->>>

I woke the band early – about 6 am on Saturday. After a short breakfast, luggage fixing, we headed to Vihren peak at about 7:40. 3 hours later we were at the top. Stayed there for a while to enjoy the views…. it was a beautiful day, perfect weather. After that we had a plan to go to the Koncheto ridge, but the path from the north side of Vihren had lots of snow and ice on it, so we decided to drop from the west side and walk around instead. 2 hours later we were at the saddle between Vihren peak and Kutelo peak. I then decided to give up – the old twisted knee from Elbrus had become a small problem and I thought it was better to not push it further. So I headed down to Bunderitsa hut with a man, who was coming from Koncheto. I was not sorry for that decision – couldn’t make it there, but met a great person, who knew lots of history facts and was a great chat down. We had a couple of beers with him when we went down. Then we met with the group – they had made it to the shelter of Koncheto ridge, and enjoyed it there…. Two of them were first timers on the mountain.

So… that’s about it…. short

Some pictures as always can be found on my Picasa web albums

Pictures from it are uploaded to my Picasa Web albums
This activity was planned by Ivan Ganev – a mountain gid, to check the preparation of a group, that was going to climb the volcanoes in Turkey (in fact they should already be on their way up now). But there were a couple of other people, preparing themselves for Mont Blanc, Elburs (guess who ), etc higher level of mountaineering things.

13th: So we gathered at Vasil Levski staduim in the early morning (06:00) of June 13th and headed to Pirin mountain and Vihren hut. 3 hours later we were ready to start hiking up from Vihren hut. Rain, freezing rain, fog, strong winds were a part of our climb, but a couple of hours later we found ourselves on the third highest peak on the Balkans. This was my first ascent of it, so I was pretty happy.

14th: it was Musala peak in turn. I’ll miss it as an explanation and will mention, that I had some rest in the hut, took some pictures. The rest I’ll leave to those who were there to resolve.

15th: We climber Botev peak with perfect weather till we were half way up. Then it started raining, a little bit after that – freezing rain. Then thunders, fog, etc…. all till we were down to our cars. But anyways – Botev was hiked this day too

Well, with 2 out 3 it was not a bad adventure after all. I felt myself in perfect condition and managed to preserve my energy, keep straight pace, etc – all the things I feel important.