Vratsa's backdrop does all the talking. Behind the town, the Vrachanski Balkan rises in a sudden wall of limestone, and just above the last houses the Leva river has cut the Vratsata gorge, a slot between cliffs some four hundred metres high that are among the tallest in the Balkans. The town spreads out at their foot, a regional centre with a busy pedestrian heart and the usual mix of communist blocks and older houses, and every street seems to end with a view of rock.
Vratsa holds a special place in Bulgarian memory because of Hristo Botev, the revolutionary poet. In 1876 he and a band of rebels seized a Danube steamer, landed near Kozloduy and marched toward these mountains to join the uprising against the Ottomans, and Botev was killed in the hills near the town, close to the peak of Okolchitsa. Every year on the anniversary, at noon, sirens sound across the country and people stand in silence. The town's history museum also holds the Rogozen treasure, a hoard of Thracian silver vessels found by a farmer digging a well in the 1980s.
The ride you want here leads up through the gorge and onto the mountain. The road climbs from the town through the Vratsata narrows, with the cliffs towering overhead, and then switches back up the slope in a series of hairpins toward Ledenika cave, a big show cave with a chamber called the Great Hall where concerts are sometimes held. The bends are tight and the gradient steep in places, and the views back over the town and the plain grow with every turn. The surface is decent but often dusty, and goats and walkers share the road. Beyond, small roads lead into the karst plateau of the nature park.
Vratsa is a full-service town with fuel, supermarkets, hotels and plenty of mehanas, the traditional Bulgarian taverns serving grilled meat, salads and rakia, though the rakia should wait until the bike is parked for the night. It makes a good base for a day on the Iskar Gorge to the east and the mountain roads above town. The plain gets very hot in summer, so the cool of the gorge and the cave in the afternoon is a welcome escape.