Western Balkan Range Travel Video Guide

Western Balkan Range Travel Itinerary

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Travelling between Sofia and Vidin takes you across the western spur of the Balkan Mountains , an area of forested highlands scattered with tortuous rock formations. Although not as high as the Rila or Pirin ranges to the south, the peaks of northwest Bulgaria present some of the country's most rewarding walking and rambling areas. Practical maps of the area are, however, thin on the ground, and serious hikers will have to pick up local knowledge from the Bulgarians staying at the region's mountain huts, or hizhi . The largely rural, undeveloped character of the northwest marks it out as an ideal destination for off-the-beaten-track travel, although tourist accommodation is limited to the odd hotel, a couple of monasteries, and the aforementioned hizhi .

There are several routes across the mountains north of the capital: travelling by train, you'll pass through the magnificent Iskar Gorge before reaching the train junction at Mezdra, and then heading via Vratsa towards Vidin and the Danube, with the mountains to your left. Most road traffic from Sofia (including buses) bypasses the Iskar Gorge entirely, taking the motorway northeast to Botevgrad before turning northwest towards Mezdra. It's a route which is clogged with long-distance trucks at the best of times, so you may prefer to take the minor road north through the Gorge instead: a slower, but much more scenic, ride. An alternative northbound route crosses the rugged terrain of Bulgaria's western borderlands. This takes you via the Petrohan Pass to the mountain resort of Berkovitsa before rejoining the main road northwards at the region's administrative centre, Montana . From here it's a straightforward trip across the plains to Vidin, although minor roads head westward to Chiprovtsi , a historic rug-weaving centre backed by

sumptuous mountain scenery, and Belogradchik , whose spectacular rock formations demand a detour. For those who want to explore the area by bus , Vratsa, Montana and Vidin are the gateway towns serving Berkovitsa, Chiprovtsi and Belogradchik respectively. You can also achieve a great deal by train if you're prepared to study timetables carefully, with a branch line serving Montana and Berkovitsa leaving the main Sofia-Vidin route at Boichinovtsi north of Vratsa.

Your Tips For Western Balkan Range

• Stara Zagora Bulgaria Travel Videos
  Bulgaria Travel Itinerary
  STARA ZAGORA means "Old Town Behind the Mountain", an apt name for this settlement on the far flanks of the eastern Sredna Gora, with a history of occupation stretching back some 7000 years. - Bulgaria
  

• Black Sea Coast Bulgaria Travel Videos
  Bulgaria Travel Itinerary
  The Bulgarian Black Sea coast has quietened down a bit since its heyday in the 1970s and 1980s, when it served as the playground for the entire Eastern bloc, but it is still a magnet for hundreds of thousands of Bulgarians and foreign visitors. - Bulgaria
  

• Kazanlak Bulgaria Travel Videos
  Bulgaria Travel Itinerary
  Forty kilometres beyond Kalofer, KAZANLAK is the capital of the rose-growing region, although you wouldn't necessarily realize that unless you pass through town during the first weekend of June, when the long-standing but fairly lacklustre Festival of Roses ( Praznik na Rozata ) takes place. - Bulgaria
  

• Balkan Range Bulgaria Travel Videos
  Bulgaria Travel Itinerary
  The Balkan Range cuts right across the country, a forbidding swathe of rock known to the Bulgarians as the Stara planina - the "Old Mountains". - Bulgaria
  

• Rhodopes Bulgaria Travel Videos
  Bulgaria Travel Itinerary
  According to Thracian mythology, the mortal lovers Hem and Rhodopis dared call themselves after the divine Zeus and Hera, who duly punished the couple by turning them into mountains separated by the River Maritsa - him the Balkans and she the Rhodopes . - Bulgaria
  

• Sofia Bulgaria Travel Videos
  Bulgaria Travel Itinerary
  According to its motto, SOFIA "grows but does not age" ( raste no ne staree ): a tribute to the mushrooming suburbs occupied by one-tenth of Bulgaria's population, and a cryptic reference to its ancient origins. - Bulgaria
  

• Sredna Gora Bulgaria Travel Videos
  Bulgaria Travel Itinerary
  ? So, proudly you may gaze Unto the Sredna Gora, the forest's single queen, And hear the ring of swords, and all this song can mean ? - Pencho Slaveykov, The Song of the Blood The Sredna Gora or "Central Highlands" stretch from the Pancharevo defile outside Sofia almost as far as Yambol on the Thracian plain. - Bulgaria
  

• Southwest Bulgaria Travel Videos
  Bulgaria Travel Itinerary
  The landscape of Bulgaria south of the capital is dominated by the River Struma, which rises on the southern slopes of Mt Vitosha before sweeping west then south through a series of arid gorges and fertile flood plains. - Bulgaria
  

• Plovdiv Bulgaria Travel Videos
  Bulgaria Travel Itinerary
  Lucian the Greek called PLOVDIV "the biggest and most beautiful of all towns" in Thrace; he might have added "and Bulgaria", for the country's second-largest city (with a population of 360,000) is one of its most attractive and vibrant centres, with arguably more to recommend it than Sofia, which the proud locals tend to regard with some disdain. - Bulgaria
  

• Shipka Pass Bulgaria Travel Videos
  Bulgaria Travel Itinerary
  For drama and majestic vistas, few routes in Bulgaria match crossing the SHIPKA PASS . - Bulgaria