Let’s start with a meeting from the previous day. We got to a friend to have some beers. Yeah, we got them – till 11 PM. And I had to get up at 2:30 AM. I got home, but somehow I couldn’t get any sleep. My mood was some kind of adrenaline-ous. So when the alarm clock started I only had an hour sleep. Never mind, I told to myself. Shower, final luggage preparation and at 4 AM off we go to the trip. I took my part of the group and drove the following route – Rousse-Veliko Tarnovo-Gabrovo-Shipka where we waited the other part of the group (they left the previous day, to extend their trip with a walk around Gabrovo). The Shipka pass welcomed us with a thick fog. We waited about an hours till the other part came and we were ready to leave for our first goal – Asenovgrad and the famous fortress. At about 10:30 -11 AM we were there.

After a lunch in Asenovgrad we headed to Oreshec and Mostovo villages. Mostovo welcomed us with the most beautiful Rodopian sight:

From then on we went to Krystova gora (The forest of the cross) peak and the cross on the peak. Actually I didn’t go there because the route didn’t exactly fit my knee’s mood . So me, Vesko and Milena waited for the others in the village.

After that was the final goal for the day – or so we thought. The Chotrova house near Belintash. The road to there was similar to… nothing – there was no road. Just dust and lost of small muddy lakes. And to finish the deal there was about 500-600 m downhill which made our cars overheat. A small break there to find out that there are no places available – and off we go back to the now uphill:

You can see the beast resting after the torture of the uphill.

So this is basically our first day. We went back to Asenovgrad and hired 4 rooms in a small hotel. We just needed rest already

The main goal of this trip for me – Belintash, was off the list. We couldn’t reach it because we didn’t reserve places to sleep nearby.

More pictures from the whole trip – in my PicasaWeb Albums