20 | Eastern Europe Destination Guide
Words by Kerry van der Jagt
Explore the less predictable
SIDE OF EUROPE
Watch out for the lone horseman, warns guide
Albena Darakchieva as she leads us through a
fissure in the Belogradchik Rocks. Engulfed by
thick fog we step across the threshold and enter
a world of soaring sandstone pillars and animal-
shaped boulders.
Following the trail ever upwards, we pause
to inspect fairy chimneys, to gaze down upon
fortress walls and to take in views of the army of
stone figures spread across the mountainside.
Here, on the western slopes of the Balkan
Mountains in the far north-west of Bulgaria, the
Belogradchik Rocks form a 30-kilometre belt
of sandstone and conglomerate rocks. Forged
under the sea more than 240 million
years ago, the red-hued rocks have been
sculpted by natural forces into human and
animal forms – the Horseman, the Madonna,
the School Girl, the Dervish – each figure
associated with a legend. To the Romans,
Byzantines and Ottoman Turks, these rocks
were a strategic stronghold within which to
build their fortresses; to our small group on a
shore excursion from Viking Lofn they are as
unexpected as if we've docked on the far side of
the Moon.
I'm in Bulgaria as part of an 11-day "Passage
to Eastern Europe" cruise along the Danube
River from Bucharest, Romania, to Budapest,
Hungary, and I'm making new discoveries every
Dracula's Castle in Bucharest
