Melnik is located in an amazing area where wind, water, and sun have eroded the ‘sand stone’ hills to form interesting pyramidal shapes. In the afternoon we left for a little round-trip.
We cycled on paved road to Rozhen, then up a hill to its monastery. We had a grand view from there.
Then we tried to cycle a hiking path, but that turned out to be impossible, so we pushed the bikes. The path first followed a dry riverbed, and then, all off a sudden, emerged at the top of one of the ‘sand mountains’, offering a spectacular view of the surrounding impressive landscape in the evening sun.
The ride down on the other side of the mountain was quite exciting. We followed the hiking path again, which went down steeply.
Back in Melnik we enjoyed extremely loud, somewhat traditional Bulgarian live music with our dinner.
Cycled: ~17km
Walked/Pushed: 1km
Top speed: 70km/h
