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Approaching from the south, arrival in VRATSA is presaged by the steaming pipelines and storage tanks of a vast chemical plant, which does much to detract from the undoubted beauty of the town's situation, standing at the base of a wall of mountains known as the Vrachanska planina . The town's main attraction for visitors is its beautiful rocky hinterland, starting with the Vratsata defile which ascends into the mountains just west of the town centre, although good ethnographic and historical museums (the latter worth visiting for the Rogozen treasure alone) provide a respectable brace of worthwhile urban sights. Just south of Vratsa is Mt Okolchitsa , where Hristo Botev , one of the more romantic figures in Bulgaria's struggle for liberation, met his death. An inspiring revolutionary leader as well as a poet known for his patriotic verses, Botev formed a cheta to lend assistance to the April Rising in 1876. Botev's men marched south into the Balkan Mountains from Kozlodui on the Danube, but were constantly harried by Ottoman forces. After days of running battles, Botev finally perished along with the remnants of his cheta on Okolchitsa on June 2.
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