The Slavs take a hike. Or two. Or three.

Note: Substack tells us this post is too long for email, because of the images, probably. To view the whole thing, click on the title.

With main harvest season over and the weather unusually and pleasantly cool, we decided to stretch our legs, starting with our own back yard.

Then we spent a weekend at the local hot springs hub, which also boasts a shrine to the Virgin Mary.

And then, because we weren’t done, decided to make a bit of a greater effort and travel a bit more than 20 km to see a cave: the Dragon’s Burrow.

Our back yard

Said back yard is not literally ours but it’s above our house. We literally have a mountain and a pine forest five minutes from our doorstep. So, one recent Thursday, with nothing better to do, Cat and Irina decided to take a walk around.

As preciously mentioned, there are certain drawbacks to living at the top of the village. Then again, there are the views.

And this is where our rocky soil comes from. The rock of the local mountain is a very fragile sort that geologists would know the name of. For the rest of us, suffice to say it looks pretty on the ground, sometimes very much like little bricks deliberately put into the ground.

Yep. Rocks and cacti. If someone from a southern, desert U.S. state comes to visit, they could probably whisper “Home” when they see this. Or so we are made to believe by the American film industry.

The village from above and the plains beyond. We are now 10 minutes from our house. It’s wonderful how pretty everything looks from a distance.

The start of the forest, which spans quite a large area. This will be our pine needle mine when we get down to preparing the vegetable beds for the winter.

Stara Zagora Hot Springs

It is the nature of things that when a hot spring, well, springs, a town forms around it. Stara Zagora Hot Springs is no exception. It is mostly full of spa hotels, of course, because we can’t let that natural treasure go to waste, but there are also regular houses. It also features a tourist site — the Virgin Mary’s Footstep.

We’d been to the Hot Springs before but while last time we focused on the pool, this time we decided to do some touristing and go see the Footstep.

When Irina researched the local sights, such as they are, the map suggested the path to the Footstep goes through the forest. As seen here, this was clearly not the case. Also, it was 3 pm and the heat was at its most oppressive.

Yep. All the greenery was around us but we weren’t in it.

Heat or no heat, we soldiered on because touristing is a serious business.

The shrine. There’s a small church to the right and none of us has any idea what the metal box with the cross on top is for but it certainly looks official. You’ll be wondering where the Footstep was.

Voila. In the centre, slightly to the right, in the shade, you can see a dip in the rock that’s full of water. It looks like a human footprint. This is how myths are born.

On the way back we were reminded of just what a major pest processionary caterpillars are, with some of us only now learning that in addition to the capability to kill pine forests, the little SOBs are also venomous.

We were also reminded by the landscape that hot springs and spa hotels are great but we all need to eat, so it’s great that there is so much fertile ground at the foot of the mountain.

The Dragon Burrows cave

Spoiler: We didn’t find the cave. We later learned we had almost found it but it was 40 meters into the forest and totally unmarked. But we did pass by it, so we consider the mission accomplished.

The Dragon Burrows cave is in the mountains above the village of Zmeyovo, about 20 km from us, whose name literally translates as Dragonville. Impressive, right? Those must be some caves.

We later learned the so-called cave is actually a group of rocks with holes in them. Snake burrows rather than dragon burrows. Oh, well. We had a nice hike, nevertheless.

It started with this picturesque path.

It was the wrong path. We had to go back a little to find the right one.

This is the right one. Steeper further ahead, it was like this for hundreds of miles, or at least what felt like hundreds of miles. But it took us to some quite pretty rocks.

And a magnificent view.

We soaked in the forest for two hours.

Encountered some wildlife.

We marvelled at the force of nature that is water.

We snapped a very touristy picture at the rocks. One of us has a blister on her heel. The other desperately needs a beer.

And Cat brought home a good crop of rocks.