Vratza Balkan Bulgaria - Travel Guide, Tours, Hotels and Photos - Pictures of Bulgaria

The most popular place in Vratza Balkan is the Hristo Botev National Park in the area of Okolchitsa (located about 20 kilometres south-east of the town of Vratsa, in the very heart of Vratza Balkan). In the beginning of June 1876 this place witnessed the last drama that put an end to the heroic epic of the detachment of Hristo Botev. The detachments’s voivoda (leader), as well as the majority of his men, were killed and the rest of them were either caught or scattered in the Balkan. The heart of one of the greatest and most ingenious Bulgarians, who left to the generations the example of his heroic life, his unsurpassed political journalism and some 20 poems, which are a majestic peak in Bulgarian poetry, ceased beating. And he was just 28 years old... In 1937-1938 a 35-metre monument with a volunteer’s crest was erected at Mt. Okolchitsa (it can be seen from a long distance far away in the plain and the mountain) to honour the heroism of Botev and his detachment forever. In the valley of Yolkovitsa, on a natural crag the place of death of the poet and revolutionary is marked. At a distance of 300 metres away from this natural monument is located the Okolchitsa Chalet (a complex of 5 panel bungalows with a restaurant, 84 beds in rooms of 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6 beds, one can make a reservation in the Tourist House in Vratsa). Each year on 2nd June the area hosts national celebrations in honour of Botev and all those who fought and gave their lives for Bulgarian freedom. All participants in the national tourist march along the Botev’s trail from the Kozlodoui bank on the Danube River arrive on the day before the celebrations and a large campus town is erected. Besides the Botev’s trail, this is the final destination of many other marked hiking tracks. During the summer there is a regular bus transport from Vratsa, and for the rest of the year - regular bus transport is provided to the village of Chelopek, and there are 8 kilometres more to the area. For about 3-4 hours one can reach the place along a marked hiking track starting from the town and passing close to the interesting waterfall of Skaklya.