The Danube
About 470 km of the border with Romania runs along the Danube. The Bulgarian ports of Vidin, Lom, Svishtov, Ruse and Silistra are connected to Vienna, Budapest and Belgrade. The Danubian Plain is the breadbasket of Bulgaria.
The main rivers
- Iskar (368 km) – the longest river that flows entirely within Bulgaria. It rises in Rila, passes by Sofia and cuts through the Balkan Mountains via the picturesque Iskar Gorge.
- Maritsa – flows through Thrace, Plovdiv and Svilengrad towards the Aegean Sea. Celebrated in folk songs and in the old anthem “Shumi Maritsa”.
- Struma and Mesta – flow south to Greece through deep and beautiful valleys.
- Yantra – bends around Tsarevets in Veliko Tarnovo, as if to guard it.
- Kamchia – flows into the Black Sea among longose (floodplain) forests.
The lakes
- The Rila Lakes – about 200 glacial lakes, of which the Seven Rila Lakes are the most famous.
- The Pirin Lakes – over 170, at various altitudes.
- Srebarna – a lake reserve by the Danube with a colony of Dalmatian pelicans. A UNESCO site.
- The Burgas Lakes – Atanasovsko (the pink salt lake), Vaya and Pomorie.
The mineral springs
Bulgaria has hundreds of mineral springs – among the first in Europe per head of population. The hottest is in Sapareva Banya – a geyser with a temperature of about 100 °C. Mineral water flows freely from the taps in central Sofia, and people fill their bottles in broad daylight.
Between us
In Europe you pay €3 for a bottle of mineral water. In Sofia you fill it from a tap next to the Banya Bashi Mosque. For free. The only condition is that you queue behind some granny with ten jerrycans.