The Yantra River rises in the Balkan Mountains at 1,220 metres above sea level and descends northwards, meandering through picturesque valleys and gorges in central northern Bulgaria, crossing the towns of Gabrovo and Veliko Tarnovo. Shortly before it flows into the Danube, in the area of the villages of Belyanovo and Novgrad, like a talented sculptor, the river moulds before our stunned eyes meanders and a deep canyon lined with caves and inaccessible crevices.
"We give short instructions and people get in the boats and go. The river is good, cozy. It envelops people with its atmosphere and they feel part of the landscape, of all this abundance... There are trees on both sides and you're like in a green tunnel. You find yourself into an isolated world with many birds and animals and you sink inside nature. There may be settlements around, roads, but they remain out of sight, out of our hearing. And we move only along this green street called Yantra."
"Interestingly, in this part of the Yantra River there are high cliffs on one bank, reaching up to 40-50 m. And this rock wall is "embedded" directly into the water below", says Sasho Popov. "These rocks are limestone, they have been eroded by the water. They have an interesting structure with caves, with niches... And in some of them hermit monks in the Middle Ages carved rock cells. There were rock churches, rock monasteries. They are difficult to access, you need mountaineering equipment to penetrate them. But near the village of Belyanovo you can see a rock church from the 12th century, which has been improved for tourism purposes."
"And it becomes a combination - we have sport and tourism activity related to rowing. We have beautiful landscapes like in the paintings of the impressionists, of Claude Monet. We have history - the monastic cloisters in the cliffs. We have ornithology, because this green curtain on both sides of the river attracts many waterfowl - grey heron, cormorants, mallards. I've also seen storks, osprey, etc. There are legends of huge fish living in the underwater cavities here. Right where the rock reaches the water there are underwater niches where huge catfish used to hide and fishermen, when they catch a catfish, tell stories for years," says Sasho Popov in conclusion.
Explore more parts of Bulgaria with the same author:
English publication: Rositsa Petkova
The village of Momchilovtsi, the Rhodopes, Pamporovo and the Smolyan region were present with a pavilion at a tourism exhibition this autumn in Ningbo, China. Speaking to BTA, Momchil Karaivanov, a representative of the Bulgarian-Chinese Society..
Cultural tourism accounts for nearly 20 % of the country’s tourism product, according to data from a survey by the Ministry of Tourism. While Bulgaria's image was previously associated mainly with maritime tourism, which made up 70% of the tourism..
For the second year, a series of bilateral business meetings in a “roadshow” took place in Germany, 11-14 November, between German and Bulgarian representatives of the tourist industry for promoting Bulgaria, the Bulgarian embassy in Berlin has..
Partly Cloudy
Mostly Cloudy
Cloudy