Tour Bulgaria

Grand tour of Bulgaria in progress !!!

18/5/2021

Our first post-COVID welcome guests from the USA are touring Bulgaria for 16 days! A magnificent tour, with some very unusual stops.
One of them is definitely PODA PROTECTED SITE:
"Besides the extraordinary bird diversity, Poda shelters the only mixed colony along the Bulgarian Black Sea Coast of the Eurasian Spoonbill, Glossy Ibis, Pygmy Cormorant, Night, Purple, Grey and Squacco Herons and Little Egret. The international importance of Poda is recognised by its designation as an Important Bird Area, Natura 2000 Site and Ramsar Site. BSPB efforts in preserving Poda were acknowledged by the first for Bulgaria National Award of the Henry Ford Conservation Awards and by the Diploma of the Association of the German Tour Operators. Poda Protected Site is one of the very few sites in Europe, where 290 bird species have been recorded at just 1 square kilometer." If you are a bird watching lover, do not miss this place where researchers will make you appreciate and learn the richness of the place. http://bspb.org/poda/en/papoda.html

Here is a small glimpse of the Black Sea in the calm of the spring sunset.

Obviously, the moment of perfumes in the Valley of the Roses was not missing, visiting one of the distilleries that in this period receive the bags of petals collected in the flowery fields, to extract the precious essence.

Another authentic experience was the trip on the Dobrinishte - Septemvri narrow-gauge line.
"This is the only operating 760 mm (2 ft 5+15⁄16 in) narrow-gauge line in Bulgaria. It is operated by Bulgarian State Railways (BDŽ). The line is actively used with four passenger trains running the length of the line in each direction per day. The journey takes five hours through the valleys and gorges between Rila and Rhodopes. The route leads from Septemvri on the mainline Sofia–Plovdiv to Dobrinishte, passing Velingrad, Yakoruda, Razlog and Bansko, linking the western part of the Upper Thracian Plain with the Western Rhodopes, Rila and Pirin mountains. Due to the characteristics of the route through the mountains, the narrow-gauge line Septemvri–Dobrinishte is also known as the Alpine railway in the Balkans. Avramovo station, situated at 1267 meters above the sea, is the highest station in the Balkans.
The railway was built in several stages between 1921 and 1945 with total length of 125 km (78 miles). The Varvara–Pazardzhik branch line, which was closed in 2002, was 16.6 km (10.3 miles) long."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Septemvri%E2%80%93Dobrinishte_narrow-gauge_line

Could not miss Plovdiv, with its magnificent colorful houses, but also the Rila Monastery, the city of Nessebar with the Byzantine churches, the charming Koprivshtiza which preserves the Bulgarian traditions embraced by the green hills. Still the Shipka church with its Russian-style golden domes, the Thracian tombs of Kazanlak, the Neolithic museum of Stara Zagora and many, many more - in 16 days you can live a truly unforgettable experience, guided by our guides - knowledgeable, kind and caring.