Why this ride
A slower scenic corridor linking historic towns and cultural landmarks. It also links naturally to Thracian Tomb of Kazanlak.
CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
Rose Valley and Koprivshtitsa
Plan this ride
- Recorded distance
- 325 km
- Riding-time estimate
- 5 h 17
- Journey
- Recorded itinerary
Distance and timing basis
The recorded total and the leg detail need reconciliation. Inspect the leg notes before using this record for timing or navigation. Stops, delays, approach and any separate return travel add time. Basis: producer-declared routed record.
Reading history stays on this device. My road watch requires a separate selection; opening it does not subscribe this ride.
Distance and riding time are measured on the routed road. Check local closures and conditions before you ride.
Access context
Verify pass condition, surface quality and local closures. Specific flag: traffic.
Seasonal context
Apr-Oct
Waypoint introductions and full write-ups
1. Sofia
Sofia sits under a mountain, and that is the first thing to understand about it. Vitosha rises right behind the southern suburbs, a broad, dome-shaped massif topping out at Cherni Vrah, around 2,290 metres, and on a clear morning the snow is visible from the boulevards. People ski there in winter and hike in summer, and the city's residents treat it like a back garden. The capital of Bulgaria is a plain, solid place of about one and a quarter million, with Soviet-era blocks, Ottoman remnants and an unexpected number of small parks.
Read the complete Sofia write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Sofia sits at 0 km, early in the day. Next is Koprivshtitsa.
2. Koprivshtitsa
Painted houses in ochre, blue and oxblood, stone walls, wooden bridges over a stream and cobbled lanes climbing a green hillside: Koprivshtitsa is the most complete small town of the Bulgarian National Revival, the nineteenth-century flowering of trade, schooling and patriotism that came before independence. It lies at about a thousand metres in a fold of the Sredna Gora, and in the middle of that century its wool and livestock merchants grew rich enough to build the elaborate houses with deep eaves, carved ceilings and painted facades that make the town famous today. Several of them are open as house museums.
Read the complete Koprivshtitsa write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Koprivshtitsa comes up 61 km in. Next is Karlovo.
3. Karlovo
Karlovo is where Vasil Levski was born, and in Bulgaria that alone puts it on the map. Levski, the Apostle of Freedom, was the organiser of the revolutionary network against Ottoman rule, travelling from village to village in disguise until he was captured and hanged in Sofia in 1873, and he is still the most admired figure in Bulgarian history. His family house in Karlovo is a museum, with a small church next to it, and the town's main square has a statue of him. It is a modest, moving place, and many Bulgarians come here almost as pilgrims.
Read the complete Karlovo write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
123 km in you reach Karlovo. Next is Kazanlak.
4. Kazanlak
In early June the air around Kazanlak smells faintly of roses, and it is no marketing trick. The town of about fifty-five thousand sits in a broad valley between the Balkan range to the north and the lower Sredna Gora to the south, and the fields here have for centuries been planted with the damask rose, whose petals are picked at dawn and distilled into oil that perfumers buy by the gram. The Rose Festival, held in the first weekend of June, fills the streets with parades and folk dancing and a general air of cheerful chaos.
Read the complete Kazanlak write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Kazanlak, late in the day. Next is Plovdiv.
5. Plovdiv
Plovdiv has been lived in for something like eight thousand years, and it is one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in Europe. It grew on a cluster of rocky hills rising out of the Thracian plain beside the Maritsa river, and each age has left its layer. Philip II of Macedon took the Thracian town and gave it his name, Philippopolis; the Romans made it a major city; the Ottomans called it Filibe; and the merchants of the National Revival filled the old town on the hills with colourful houses with jutting upper storeys. Walking through it is like flipping through a stack of history books.
Read the complete Plovdiv write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Plovdiv sits at 325 km, late in the day.