Day 5 - Friday, May 2,.2025 - Vidin, Bulgaria

By Ellen Outten

 


Good morning from Vidin Bulgaria 

Today's tour was a 4-hour excursion, leaving at 9 am and headed to the Belogradchick fortress and rocks.

We had an hour drive from the ship through similar farmland as yesterday.  Wheat, canola and sunflower is the major crop as well here.

We toured the town of Vidin on our way out.  
The port area where we docked 

The former only Jewish synogogue built in 1894.  Now a community center as the Jewish population cannot support a synogogue.

We toured the town of Vidin on our way out of town as we headed for the fortress. It's a small town with only about 35,000 people.

Our drive took us to the rocks of Belogradchick and the fortress.  Originally built by the Romans, it was added to and enlarged by the Turks of the Ottoman empire.  

It's very pretty and has a red hue, and a natural phenomenon, unique to the Balkans and an important site in Europe. The Belogradchik rocks are amazing not only with their age of over 230 million years, but also with dozens of legends about the bizarre natural forms named after many of the rock formations.

The massive Belogradchik sandstone and limestone rock formations cover an area of around 90 sq km and tower over the town. The rocks, standing up to 200m high, were sculpted over millions of years by natural compression.



Shapes carved over hundreds of millions of years by the forces of wind, water, and temperature changes. 
Do you see Abraham Lincoln on the far right, and an elephant in the middle?  'Adam and Eve' ( on the far left)?  These are just some of the named formations.



A view of the town below the fortress.

It was good to have a short day.  We were back in Vidin and on the ship at 1:00 pm
  After lunch, it was rest time.  Time to let the legs relax get ready for tomorrow.



Comments

  1. LeticiaMay 12, 2025 at 7:39 AM

    🫶🏼 it nice to experience the countryside in different countries

    ReplyDelete

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