This post has been forming in my mind for months, ever since cycle touring Bulgaria last fall. The country won us over and it ended up on the top of our list of favorite countries from our European cycle tour. We followed the Euro Velo 13, or the Iron Curtain Trail, for the majority of our tour, which runs along the Bulgarian Rhodope Mountains before getting into the lowlands along the Turkish border and continues onto the Black Sea.
Having no idea what to expect from the Balkan country, we found unexpected surprises at every curve in the road. We feel strongly that Bulgaria should be at the top of every cycle tourists’ list and below, we share our reasons why.
The Rhodope Mountains
Bulgaria’s Rhodope Mountain range, which sets the border between Bulgaria and Greece left us in awe for a week straight. Sure, the hills were steep and grueling, but it was worth all the effort to guzzle in the beauty of the landscape. One evening, we camped at the base of a ski mountain just outside of Smolyan, engulfed by mountains all around. At night, the sky glittered with one of the clearest skies we had ever seen. With rivers cutting through gorges and verdant forests spanning for miles, we felt at home in the virtually untouched nature of this part of Bulgaria.
Water, Water Everywhere!
At least once every mile, it seemed, we’d come upon a beautiful stone structure dispensing fresh, potable water straight from the mountain rivers. Sometimes, these structures would include a covered picnic area, a barbecue, and grassy areas for wild camping. We never once had to worry about finding water along the route and we could easily locate tables to prepare all three meals nearly every day.
Inexpensive Accommodation
If we didn’t feel like camping one night, price was never a worry. We could handily find clean, comfortable accommodation in any of the small mountain or spa towns dotting the Iron Curtain Trail for as little as $15 per night. Dog and bike-friendly options were abundant throughout the route.
Vegan Travel
We were happily surprised to discover the ease of finding vegan Bulgarian foods like guvech, a vegetable stew cooked in a clay pot. When we explained to restaurant staff that we were vegan, they were only too happy to accommodate our dietary needs rather than turn us away. Also, since Bulgaria is an EU member, it means that one can find supermarket chains like Lidl in nearly every town.
Car-free Riding
Throughout the majority of our cycling in Bulgaria, the roads were virtually free of cars. Aside from coming and going out of small towns, we could essentially take the lane. Any cars that did pass, gave plenty of space and let us know of their presence with a light tap of the horn. It was by far, one of the most calming share-the-road experiences of our entire cycle tour.
Peanut Butter!
After months and months of searching in vain for real peanut butter, we finally stumbled upon a storefront in Petrich, where the proprietor sold freshly made peanut butter that she ground herself. No added sugars, oils, or any other junk, just peanuts. Despite adding to my already heavy load, I purchased the most giant jar I could find. And it was worth it. I made the Raw Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Balls shown above. I don’t remember the name of the storefront, but it is located a few doors down from the Billa supermarket.
Wine Country
Did you know that Bulgaria produced wine? Neither did we. Apparently, it was the world’s second largest wine producer in the 1980’s, but declined along with the fall of communism. We discovered Bulgarian wines when we visited Kamping Kromidovo right in the heart of Bulgaria’s Thracian Valley.
From the campground, it was an easy walk to boutique winery Orbelus Organic, where even Sora was invited on tour. There, we sampled new-to-us varietals like Melnik and Hrumki. A longer walk took us to Villa Melnik, a larger winery that offered bold merlots and syrah, and chardonnays. Like the food and accommodation, purchasing wine was much cheaper than other European or American wines.
Spa Towns
The Iron Curtain trail skips from one spa town to the next, including Gotse Delchev and Devin. With over 200 natural mineral springs flowing throughout the country, the warm waters and spa treatments are certainly attractive after a tough day of riding. Hour-long massages cost a whopping $25, definitely worth the pampering.
Mountain Huts
A few days after arriving in Bulgaria, our Euro Velo bike route directed us to a goat path. A rocky, muddy, and steep trail that slowed our pace to a whopping four kilometers in four hours, as we pushed our bike up and over the mountain. By the time we reached the top, we were exhausted and I wanted to throw my bike into the ravine below.
Fortunately for us, mountain wanderers are never far from one of the many Bulgarian mountain huts, and we found the nearest one just a kilometer down the path. This particular hut came equipped with a warm, comfortable room with a cozy bed, a kind host who made us lunch and dinner every day, and an adorable kitten who followed us on dog walks. For the price of $15 per night, we felt the service was well worth the price.
Off the Beaten Path
We spent about two weeks cycle touring through Bulgaria and saw no other cycle tourists and few foreigners, even in the touristy spa towns. This means no kitschy souvenir shops, no vendors accosting you as you walk by, no mass-produced “artisan” goods, and best of all, no hoards of tourists. With Bulgaria virtually to ourselves, we were able to better immerse ourselves into the culture, get to know the people, and amble around in peace.
If You Go:
Route: Euro Velo 13 or the Iron Curtain Trail. The entire route spans 20 countries over 10,400 kilometers. The Bulgarian section begins along the Serbian border, crossing borders into Macedonia, Greece, and Turkey for a few sections before terminating at the Black Sea.
Distance: The total distance within Bulgaria totals 677 kilometers.
Road Condition: Overall, the roads were well-maintained and paved. We did encounter some poor road conditions shortly after Kromodovo and before Gotse Delchev when we found ourselves on the goat path, pushing for several kilometers over a mountain.
When to Go: Between May and September for maximum sun and warmth.
Difficulty: Ranged from easy to challenging, with the goat path and several passes involved.
Final Thoughts
We can’t recommend cycle touring Bulgaria enough. The quiet, low-traffic roads meandering through the verdant hills made this Bulgarian route one of our favorites of our European tour. Even with a few days of heavy, chilly rains and two days of pushing bikes up goat paths, aren’t enough to deter us from highlighting this beautiful country.
Who knew? Thanks for sharing. I’ll put it on my list of places to tour next time we’re in Europe. Perhaps en route from Portugal to Greece? Hmmmmm.
Now that sounds like a nice route. I think we’ll join you for that one as well. 😉
Beautiful photos! I made just a short trip to Bulgaria last September without my bicycle and just fell in love with it. Very underrated and off the regular path. I was wondering how it would be to cycle. Thanks for sharing!
Where in Bulgaria did you travel? There was so much more of the country that we wanted to explore, but there’s only so far you can get by bicycle in one adventure!
We’ll definitely be passing through Bulgaria next fall, but we don’t yet have the exact route planned out. Based on your pictures and comments, I can’t wait!
Let us know when you do go through! We can tell you more exactly locations where we found accommodations like the mountain huts or places to avoid, like the goat paths…unless you want an adventure! 😉
I think I can do without the adventure of the goat paths! Hey, I think you stayed in Istanbul for a while is that right? I was wondering if you had any recommendations on places to stay there. After Bulgaria we plan to head down there for a month or more. I submitted the same question on your ‘contact us’ page so sorry if it’s a duplicate, but I wasn’t sure if you got it.
We did stay in Istanbul. We stayed at an AirBnB, as we had trouble finding Warm Showers hosts that would allow a dog, but we stayed near Taksim Square. It was a pretty walkable area to stay – there were lots of restaurants and bars and several parks. More popular is probably Kadiköy, where all the spice markets and the Bazaar is, but also more tourists. The subway system in Istanbul is fantastic, so it all depends on whether you want to stay where the action is, or stay where it’s a bit less busy, but still easy to access the rest of the city. There are places to see all over Istanbul, so it’s tough to make a bad choice!
Thanks for the reply! Taksim Square sounds perfect for us. Did you like your AirBnB host? We will have our dog too so looking for a good dog-friendly place to stay.
Hi Jen, thanks for sharing this really interesting blog – it helped us decide whether to spend more time in Bulgaria or Romaine, and have just entered the north west corner of Bulgaria and are already blown away by the scenery in Belogradchik! I’d love to get your advice on cycle touring here and the Iron Curtain route – are you free to get in touch over the next day or two? Thanks, Rosie
Hi Rosie,
Glad you’re spending time in Bulgaria. We love that country and we are always free to chat. Just let us know.
-dave
Hi Dave, thanks for getting back!! We are in the process of planning our route and would love to hear your advice. I’m struggling to find out how to private message, or is it best just to contact on this post?
In summary we want to see as much as we can over the next 12-14days, wondering whether to cross the Stara Planina or the Rhodope Mountains. Our next main staging post is Istanbul, and if we can manage it keen to spend a couple of days at the seaside.
Would love to hear your thoughts!
Thanks,
Rosie
Hi Rosie,
We will email you and we can chat there.
Best,
dave
Hi Dave; we are planning to do the last 677 kms to the Black Sea of the Iron Curtain trail, can you please tell me which bike map I can use, thanks. Chuck
Hi Chuck,
Have you checked out our post on here? https://longhaultrekkers.com/the-best-offline-mapping-tools-for-cycle-touring/
I personally would use open cycle maps and see if there are any designated routes first. One of the Euro Velo routes is along the Iron Curtain, correct?
-dave
Bulgarians are very proud of their country’s natural beauty and deservedly so. Thank you so much for such a wonderful post. The photos are stunning and the descriptions lovely to read.
Hi Risa! Yes, Bulgarians should be proud of the country’s natural beauty – it was stunning and untouched! Glad you enjoyed the post and thanks so much for giving it a read.
What a wonderful review, of a country i now call my home… We have been here for 8 years and are passionate about our mountain biking, the surrounding mountains are paradise for us to enjoy our sport.. Still relatively undiscovered by the rest of the mtb community it still amazes us how remote you can feel so close to civilisation… Thank you again, fantastic pictures, many of which we recognise, we are based in SW Bulgaria near to the ski area of Bansko, our winter is just ending, so now is time to be back out on the bike.. Happy days 🙂
I’ll be the mountain biking is amazing in BUlgaria! We can only imagine the long paths through the woods, untouched by anyone…except maybe goats. 😉 We wished we could have stayed to ski, as we’ve heard the skiing there is great – and cheap – as well. I think BUlgaria’s got a lot of secret gems and it’s only a matter of time before they’re revealed. And hopefully, they’ll remain pristine. Thanks for reading and glad you enjoyed!
Hi,
Thank you for this very beautiful report + pictures. I really want to go there too. But how do you get there? It seems to me that the airports are too far from the route? Are these your bikes or did you hire bikes? We want to go in the first part of October…
Thx, Isabelle
Hi Isabelle. We cycled Bulgaria as part of a longer cycle tour of Europe, so we were on our own bikes. Sofia is the largest city, so I would look into flying there and making your way to the route itself. I think it would only be a few days of riding to reach the path. From what we heard from another cycle tourist we met, he said Sofia is a great city and he was on his way there after we met. Hope this info helps a bit!
Sounds like fun! I’ve cycled the Atacama in Chile and the Quebrada de Cafayate in Argentina. This sounds like something I should be doing as well 🙂
Oh awesome! We’re slowly making our way towards the Atacama and then onto Bolivia. Do you have any biking tips for the area?
The bikes are terrible! Pay a little extra for a good outfit that rents good gear :). Make sure you double check everything in the gear bags before you return it, some of these guys will claim something is missing and its not. Good luck!
Ha! We’ve definitely rented terrible bikes before in Colombia. We come with our own, so that shouldn’t be a problem.
Forgive me for my ignorance, I’ve only cycle toured within the US and have never been to Bulgaria. How safe is it? Are they generally friendly to foreigners (American in this case)? How difficult is it communicating if you are only an english speaker?
Hi Jeff! Safety wasn’t an issue at all in Bulgaria that we felt. It never even crossed our minds. We met plenty of lovely people who were very nice to us and never once had an issue being American foreigners. The language was a bit tricky, but we managed just fine using hand gestures and Google translate. Anything specific we needed, we just asked a bilingual speaker to write it down for us. I also had a lot of fun trying to figure out Cyrillic! I made it a bit of a game and eventually learned all of the letters.
Bulgaria is a great country to visit.
Very friendly and very safe. Sadly I haven’t managed to cycle there but have been visiting the Black Sea area for years.
We loved touring Bulgaria and would do it again without a doubt.
Has anyone biked the sea coast from Istanbul to Odessa?
I’m sure someone has, but we have not! I would try posting in the Bicycle Touring group in Facebook. There are tens of thousands of cyclists there who have ridden all over the world.
Hi both, glad you enjoyed your stay and cycling tour around part of Bulgaria, we have lived here since 2007 at the base of the Stara Planina mountains, it’s beautiful here and have heard of a route across the top of the mountains out of Gabrovo I think, all the way to Varna on the coast, with huts to shelter in on the route, so maybe that would be a route to consider. The town of Veliko Turnovo is well worth a visit, the king used to live there many years ago before he was moved to Sofia, do hope if you return you enjoy yourselves as much as before. The Bulgarian’s we find are a friendly and trusting group of people, that’s one of the reasons we have stayed so long, with the fact that it is a beautiful country.
Thanks for sharing! We absolutely loved touring in Bulgaria and it’s great to see you promoting the country. We miss the mountains!
Hi Dave, thanks for your reply. The Euro Velo is the Iron Curtain trail 3, I bought the map from Bikeline, The section we want to ride is from Kyustendil to Carevo which is 921 km. Can you tell me which route you rode that is 677 km. We only have time to do 680 km. And would you able to reply to my email?
cheers.
Hi Chuck,
You can view the whole iron curtain route of Bulgaria here: https://www.bikemap.net/en/o/2778994/.
We headed towards Edirne in Turkey as our plans took us south of Istanbul.
-dave
My girlfriend and I are en route to cycling to India. Currently in Budapest having followed the EV6 from Holland.
Having read your article I’m thinking of cutting on to EV13. I wanted to ask if this route is well signed or is it best to follow online mapping you’d posted in previous comments.
Thanks and look forward to hearing back
Matt & Becky
Definitely use the online mapping apps as there were some signs, but it wasn’t consistent. What’s your route for after Turkey?
Enjoy!
Hi Jen and Dave. Thanks so much for incredibly useful information and inspiration for cycle touring in Bulgaria. We are in Serbia at the moment and planning the next stage of our trip to Istanbul, and this blog was just what we needed. We would love to know more about your favourite places to camp or stay along the way if you don’t mind sharing. Thanks so much – Harriet and Mat (@monteandkomodo).
Do you know of any English language cycling guides for the eurovelo 13 in Bulgaria? We are not planning to camp, so hopefully the guide could list places to stay along the route. Thanks for your help! We haven’t been able to find anything.
Hey beautiful photos here, thinking of cycling from Istanbul to Sofia this October and taking the euro velo 13 from erdine and it’s hard finding much info on this route. Would be really interested in hearing good places to stay and bit to avoid. We haven’t cycled in mountains before and trying to work out if it’s do-able. Looks so amazing though and really want to go. Thanks for posting this. If your able to give us tips would be amazing. Thanks!
Hi and thanks for writing us. There are so many route options to take, my recommendation is to start small and see what you’re comfortable with and go from there. October may be cold so be prepared for that. In my opinion avoid big cities. 🙂