Bulgaria, V.2016
Well, it might be a sort of a backhanded compliment to say that one of the advantages of Sofia is ease of getting out of it and reach picturesque places. If that’s the case – so be it. The whole train line Sofia-Mezdra going north through meanders of Iskar river/valley is a perfect escape road for a weekend. In a short time (depending on the speed of the train you have chosen, but not more than 1h-1,5h) you can jump out of the train in any small villages and head up to the mountains.
Last weekend the chosen one was Zverino – cucumber town – you cannot miss the view on a huge greenhouse there. Not the most beautiful, but I might change opinion after I meet one of them in a shopska salad.
Anyway, here starts one of the paths to Okolchitsa hut with some views – wide and close-ups:
Unfortunately, weather kept changing from sun to thunder rumble and back, so the plan changed to reach Lakatnik instead, since on this day a village festival was about to take place.
Lakatnik is famous from the Lakatnik Rocks – formation that overlooks the village, with cross on the top. Should be a destination for more stable weather for sure, so I will come back to this topic. View on the rocks from the city and train station is really impressing, so my camera got busy (you can notice various colors of the sky between shots).
As for the village festival – I enjoyed its low profile. When we arrived there at 17:00 there were about 20-30 people, including ones working on few stands with pancakes, sweet corn, cotton candy and selling toys. Maybe weather, maybe a working Saturday came into place, who knows?
But anyway one thing you can always enjoy at such places – beer in a plastic cup and kebapche sausage in a bun. Taste is different even after a short hike – the best appetizer. And that might be the ultimate outtake from the trip – to get my kebapche-greasy hands on a calendar of such festivals of villages and towns in Bulgaria (so-called Sabor) and combine a hike with them.
