After that it was time for what we couldn’t visit the day before – the Devil’s throat cave. Legends say that here Orpheus dropped to the kingdom of the death to save his beloved Eurydice. Outside it looks like nothing special, until you go in – there are I think about 15 waterfalls, the biggest of which is 42 meters. The roar of them is scary. You have to climb to get out of the cave, to the natural entrance of it, where the water goes inside. Many people have been trying to throw objects in it, even live animals in ancient times – none of which have been found. Near the entrance there’s a memorial plate to the two divers, which entered the cave to search for its exit in the 70s – again, they did not exit.

The village we visited a month ago with Andre and Clara – Shiroka lyka (Широка лъка) was a must this time too. A small old village, one of the centers of bagpipe music in Bulgaria. There we even saw a bus of students from Ruse on a 5 day trip around Bulgaria. Such tourism is important for young people, I think – they need to know their country at least.

Something we missed the last time was the natural phenomena Wonder bridges (Chudnite mostove, Чудните мостове). A great place, high in the Rodopi mountains, huge piece of art by nature. These are the leftovers of a big ancient cave, in which there has been a river flowing. With time parts of the cave walls thinned and broke, and this formed the Wonder bridges that we know nowadays.

In the afternoon another stop of our trip around Bulgaria was Bachkovo monastery (Бачковски манастир). It was founded in 11th century by two Georgian brothers. During the years it has been robbed and ruined many times by the Osman armies. In present it’s the second biggest monastery complex in Bulgaria, after the Rila monastery.

Last stop in this long day was Asenova fortress (Asenova krepost, Асенова крепост). It has been a fortress even in Thracian times, then it has been used by Byzantines, for security in the Aegean region. It has been even conquered by the crusaders of the 4th Crusade. It has been called after the Bulgarian king Ivan Asen II, who does a lot of repairs and fortifications of it. Ruined and conquered by the Osman armies in 1410.

After the long day we had, we found a beautiful hotel in the center of Nova Zagora city.

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:

Basically we will repeat the 2009 Rodopi trip and 2009 again South Bulgaria-Greece trip partly – visiting Rila monastery, Melnik pyramids, Rozhen monastery, Plovdiv the old city, Asenova fortress, Bachkovo monastery, Trigrad gorge, Dyavolsko gyrlo cave, Yagodinska cave.

Of course with some slight addition – after all the will be a whole six day trip around Bulgaria – not 3 or 4 day as before. We are planning to see Koprivshtitza, Tyrnovo, Shipka, Gabrovo, Tryavna again.

I just hope the weather will be OK – the spring is not exactly visible in this part of the world It’s still minus something, extremely cold, and some great north wind is expected, according to the forecast

Well – whatever it is…. I’m sure we’ll have fun. The old Audi is ready, my fellow travelers are ready, the map is drawn, the trip outlines are put. What’s left – well, a couple hours more.

Приятен път (or Nice travel) to wish it in Bulgarian

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.

Let’s start with a meeting from the previous day. We got to a friend to have some beers. Yeah, we got them – till 11 PM. And I had to get up at 2:30 AM. I got home, but somehow I couldn’t get any sleep. My mood was some kind of adrenaline-ous. So when the alarm clock started I only had an hour sleep. Never mind, I told to myself. Shower, final luggage preparation and at 4 AM off we go to the trip. I took my part of the group and drove the following route – Rousse-Veliko Tarnovo-Gabrovo-Shipka where we waited the other part of the group (they left the previous day, to extend their trip with a walk around Gabrovo). The Shipka pass welcomed us with a thick fog. We waited about an hours till the other part came and we were ready to leave for our first goal – Asenovgrad and the famous fortress. At about 10:30 -11 AM we were there.

After a lunch in Asenovgrad we headed to Oreshec and Mostovo villages. Mostovo welcomed us with the most beautiful Rodopian sight:

From then on we went to Krystova gora (The forest of the cross) peak and the cross on the peak. Actually I didn’t go there because the route didn’t exactly fit my knee’s mood . So me, Vesko and Milena waited for the others in the village.

After that was the final goal for the day – or so we thought. The Chotrova house near Belintash. The road to there was similar to… nothing – there was no road. Just dust and lost of small muddy lakes. And to finish the deal there was about 500-600 m downhill which made our cars overheat. A small break there to find out that there are no places available – and off we go back to the now uphill:

You can see the beast resting after the torture of the uphill.

So this is basically our first day. We went back to Asenovgrad and hired 4 rooms in a small hotel. We just needed rest already

The main goal of this trip for me – Belintash, was off the list. We couldn’t reach it because we didn’t reserve places to sleep nearby.

More pictures from the whole trip – in my PicasaWeb Albums