|
Lying in a bowl beneath the hills just east of the Serbian border, BELOGRADCHIK (literally "small white town") gives its name to Bulgaria's most spectacular rock formations, the Belogradchishkite skali , which cover an area of 90 square kilometres to the west. The limestone rocks greatly impressed French traveller Adolph Blanqui in 1841, who described them as an "undreamt landscape" rising to heights of 200m in shades of scarlet, buff and grey, with shapes suggestive of "animals, ships or houses, Egyptian obelisks" and "enormous stalagmites". The towering rocks nearest the town form a natural fortress whose defensive potential has been exploited since ancient times. Begun by the Romans, continued by the Bulgars during the eighth century, and completed by the Turks a millennium later, the castle at Belogradchik used to command the eastern approaches to the Belogradchik Pass. Although no longer in use, the pass was for centuries the main trade route linking the lower Danube with the settlements of Serbia's Morava Valley. In Ottoman times the citadel and its garrison served to intimidate and control the local populace, and hundreds of Bulgarian insurgents were held here after the failed uprising of 1850. One particularly unsavoury tale relates that many of the prisoners were slaughtered when the Ottomans forced them to pass through a low doorway, only to have their heads lopped off by swordsmen lurking on the other side
Your Tip for Belogradchik
Help other backpackers! Write your own guides and backpacking tips to Belogradchik - they will appear instantly on this page - Please only write a tip/guide to Belogradchik - visit the main Belogradchik forum to ask a question!
Please do not post links to your site here (they won't work) - please use the Belogradchik webguide section below! Thanks.
| 
