The top level
A view over thirty kilometres of rock formations.
Yanko Malinov โ CC BY-SA 4.0 ยท Klearchos Kapoutsis โ CC BY 2.0 ยท Pudelek (Marcin Szala) โ CC BY-SA 3.0 ยท Pudelek (Marcin Szala) โ CC BY-SA 3.0
The region is far, so make it two days. Besides the fortress and the rocks, the **Magura Cave** twenty kilometres away holds wall paintings made in bat guano, estimated at thousands of years old, and is among the most important cave-art sites in the Balkans. A little further, **Vidin** on the Danube holds **Baba Vida** โ the best-preserved medieval fortress in Bulgaria โ and the Danube bridge to Romania. This is among Bulgaria's poorest and least visited regions, and that is part of the appeal: you will find no crowds.
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Belogradchik Fortress is among the strangest things in Bulgaria, because half its walls were not made by people: it was built among **natural red sandstone rocks** some of which stand two hundred metres high, and those rocks were used as the walls โ only the gaps between them were built in stone. The Romans began it in the first century to watch the roads, the Byzantines and Bulgarians extended it, and the Ottomans gave it its present form in the early nineteenth century with French and Italian engineers. It was never taken by force. Around it the **Belogradchik Rocks** run for thirty kilometres, sandstone formations stripped bare by wind and water over two hundred million years, each with a popular name and a story: the Monk, the Schoolgirl, Adam and Eve. The climb through the fortress runs over three levels on steps and rock ramps, and the view from the top is exceptional. **About 180 km north-west of Sofia** โ three hours, so a very long day or an overnight.
A view over thirty kilometres of rock formations.
The Monk, the Schoolgirl, Adam and Eve.
Belogradchik, north-western Bulgaria