Smolyan is a town that does not quite know where it begins. It runs for roughly ten kilometres along the narrow valley of the Cherna river, a thin ribbon of houses and apartment blocks hemmed in by pine-covered slopes, because it was stitched together in the 1960s from several separate villages and never really filled in the gaps. It is the capital of the central Rhodopes and the largest town in these mountains, and once you accept its odd shape, the setting is superb: ridges on every side, forest climbing to the skyline, and the air noticeably fresher than down on the Thracian plain.
The town's sights are modest but real. Above the eastern end, a chain of small lakes lies in the forest, left behind by old landslides, with paths among the trees. The regional museum is good on Rhodopean life, costumes and crafts, and on the Pomak communities of these mountains, and there is a planetarium, the biggest in Bulgaria, which is a strange thing to find up here. North of town is the ski resort of Pamporovo, busy in winter and sleepy in summer, and to the west lies the village of Shiroka Laka with its stone-roofed houses.
What you will remember, though, is the road. North from Smolyan, the climb past Pamporovo is long and flowing, through pine woods with views back over the valley, and beyond Chepelare the road drops along a river gorge toward Asenovgrad, with rock walls, short tunnels and a string of bends that keeps coming. That descent is one of the classic rides of southern Bulgaria, but it carries traffic and the rock walls make for blind corners, so stay well inside your lane. Westward, toward Shiroka Laka and Devin, the roads get narrower and quieter, with tighter turns and broken edges.
As a stop, Smolyan covers everything: fuel stations at both ends of town, supermarkets, a choice of hotels and family restaurants. Look for the hearty mountain food, kachamak, a cornmeal porridge with cheese and butter, and smilyan beans, a large white bean grown in the village of that name nearby. Mist often fills the valley in the morning and burns off by ten, so an unhurried breakfast is not wasted time.