{"id":3500,"date":"2013-04-19T23:59:00","date_gmt":"2013-04-19T23:59:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/onmytodd.org\/?p=3500"},"modified":"2013-05-20T17:41:43","modified_gmt":"2013-05-20T15:41:43","slug":"melnik-ruzhen-melnik","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/onmytodd.org\/?p=3500","title":{"rendered":"Melnik – Rozhen – Melnik"},"content":{"rendered":"

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.<\/p>\n

We cycled on paved road to Rozhen, then up a hill to its monastery. We had a grand view from there.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

The ride down on the other side of the mountain was quite exciting. We followed the hiking path again, which went down steeply.<\/p>\n

Back in Melnik we enjoyed extremely loud, somewhat traditional Bulgarian live music with our dinner.<\/p>\n

Cycled: ~17km
\nWalked\/Pushed: 1km
\nTop speed: 70km\/h<\/p>\n