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Posts Tagged ‘nature’

Sofia -> Istanbul

Sunday, December 20th, 2009

It was a long time since I wrote something in the blog. The reason are many, but mostly because I’ve had a full schedule the two months I have been here in Bulgaria now. I’ve traveled around by car, bus and train, visited small towns, big cities, incredibly friendly & interesting people, been trekking, caving, taking baths in outdoor hot mineral springs, bungee jumping, partying, exploring and learning. I have totally fell in love, both in this country and it’s people.

BUT – I will probably move to Istanbul for 2 months in the beginning of January. There are mainly two reasons for this. First of all I will maybe loose my apartment here in Sofia around New Year’s Eve. Instead of looking for a new apartment here, I will take a break to get a perspective on things, and look for an short term apartment/roommate in Istanbul instead. Also, I need more warm climate than Sofia right now, although this means I will miss the snowboard season here.

First of all I will fly home to my family in Sweden for a week to spend Christmas there. Then back here in Bulgaria for NYE celebrations. Hopefully at this time i have more concrete plans and an apartment.

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Tags: Bulgaria, daily life, mountains, moving, nature, Sofia, trekking
Posted in Moving & living, Travels | No Comments »

The mountains and caves around Sofia

Tuesday, November 17th, 2009

I love trekking and when I have not been exploring my new home town Sofia I have done trips to the mountains. Two beautiful places that I want to tell you about are Lakatnik and Skakavitsa.

Lakatnik is about one hour outside of Sofia and there is a train stop which is perfect to start your trekking from. You will cross a bridge over the Iskar river and then walk up through a beautiful forest with an incredible panoramic view. After about one hour you reach one of the many caves you can find here. These natural caves date back to around 130,000 BP and have different difficult levels that suit both beginners and experienced cavers. If you don’t like cave’s (or bats) you can just enjoy the fascinating view! This mountain also has some perfect walls for climbing if you know what you are doing.

Lakatnik - crossing over the Iskar river

Locals we met on the way walking up the mountain

The river again following the mountain

One of the Lakatnik caves with an incredible view

Portrait photographing on high heights

Beautiful view over the foggy forest

Skakavista is two hours from Sofia and is most easy to reach by car. If you don’t have a car available you can also take two buses to get there. Skakavista is perfect for a weekend trip as there is a big hut up in the mountain (within 1-2 hours walk) where you can stay if the weather is not suited for tenting. This place is most famous because of it’s beautiful waterfall and on the other side of the mountain it’s lakes. In the winter the waterfall is turned into ice and great for ice climbing. If you are here in the summer you can instead take a dip in the small river that goes down the mountain.

Skakavitsa - view of one of the mountains

Ice on the mountain wall

Beautiful ice formations in the river

More river and ice

Skakavitsa river coming from the waterfall

The Skakavitsa waterfall, with periodical ice breaks

Both these places are great both for beginners and advanced trekkers because you can find varied level of difficult tracks.

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Tags: Adventure, mountains, nature, Pictures, Sofia, trekking
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Day trip to Ronda

Thursday, October 22nd, 2009

A week in Fuengirola is a little bit too much, so one day I took a short trip to Ronda. This small town is located high up in the mountains and is known mostly because of Ernest Hemingway writing about it’s beauty and the 120 meter tall bridge that you have to cross to get into the old town. I had been there before and went there now mostly to show the town too some people, but this time we took a different way back home and it turned out to be the best part of the whole trip! The roads were newly renovated and great to drive on, if you don’t easily get road sickness as there were almost no straight lines but only curves the whole way. The view was breathtaking and started with a desert landscape which soon changed into high beautiful mountains and a protected nature area with the name Sierra de Las Nievas. If it hadn’t been for the darkness catching in on us we would have spent more time just walking and driving around there.