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Despite an average altitude of only 1000m, the western Rhodopes offer some of the finest walking in Bulgaria. Their perfectly proportioned gorges and crags are covered by aromatic pines and spruces, with lizards and bluebirds flashing among the rocks, as hawks and eagles soar overhead. Around Trigrad there are some fabulous caves such as the Devil's Throat, as well as the annual bagpipe festival at nearby Mugla in early August. The picturesque village of Shiroka Laka makes a popular excursion from Pamporovo or a pleasant stopover en route to the sleepy hill towns of Devin and Dospat . From Dospat you can head north to the historic town of Batak and on to the spa resorts of Velingrad and Yundola - which can also be reached by bus from Plovdiv, or on the narrow-gauge railway running between Septemvri and the Pirin mountain town of Bansko. Unfortunately, public transport in the region is particularly poor, with infrequent and unreliable bus connections. Unless you have plenty of time - and patience - you would do better to rent your own transport; if you do get stuck somewhere, though, hitchhiking is a common and acceptable option, for tourists and locals alike. Travelling through the region you're struck by the degrees of separation between its Christian and Pomak (Slav Muslim) inhabitants, with some villages exclusively one, others a mixture of both. Broadly speaking the area is Christian as far west as Devin but the majority of villages thereon are Pomak. While a mosque or a church is an obvious sign, many Pomak villages weren't allowed to build mosques during Communist times and have only begun to do so recently. Most feature a boxy prayer hall and a white pencil-minaret in the Ottoman style. Although Pomak women cover their heads and bodies, this stipulation is variously interpreted in different villages: some wear a headscarf ( zabradka ) and a long dress or pantaloons ( shalvari ), with others sporting a white wimple and a dun-coloured smock, or even a half-veil ( feredzhe ).
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