Bulgaria Shipka Pass Road (67 km)
Gabrovo to Kazanlak
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Why this ride
A 67 km one-way ride from near Gabrovo, about 1 h 10 of riding. The stops in between: Shipka Pass and Shipka Memorial. The highest point is about 1,200 m. It suits an unhurried touring pace.
Roadbook
- Gabrovo
start
Gabrovo is the town where the Balkan Mountains begin to rise in earnest, strung along the narrow valley of the Yantra River in central Bulgaria, and it is best known for a joke. The town has a reputation, among Bulgarians, for thrift, and the legends of its stinginess have produced a whole genre of humour. The House of Humour and Satire, a museum devoted to it, is one of the stranger attractions in the country, and the town holds a biennial carnival of humour. Locals take the whole thing with good grace, and a visitor who tells a thrift joke will probably be rewarded with a better one.
Behind the jokes lies a history of industry. Gabrovo was an early centre of textile manufacturing in the Ottoman era and the first Bulgarian town to have a secular school, and its craftsmen and merchants were prominent in the national revival of the nineteenth century. A few kilometres to the south, the Etar Architectural-Ethnographic Complex is an open-air museum where craftsmen work in water-powered workshops and demonstrate traditional crafts in a collection of old houses.
For riders, Gabrovo is the doorway to the Shipka Pass, one of the best-known mountain roads in Bulgaria. The road climbs south from town through beech forest, crosses the main ridge of the Balkan at about 1,185 metres, and descends into the Valley of the Roses near Kazanlak, with plenty of bends and a surface that is generally good. At the top, a huge stone monument stands on Stoletov Peak, commemorating the fierce battles of 1877 and 1878, when Russian and Bulgarian volunteers held the pass against Ottoman forces in the war that led to Bulgaria's liberation. A steep staircase leads to the memorial, and the view over the mountains is wide. The pass can be icy or snowy in winter, and fog sometimes sits in the beech forest, so check conditions before you go.
Gabrovo has more than sixty thousand people, so fuel, food and accommodation are no problem. Tryavna, thirteen kilometres to the south-west, is a lovely old town of wooden houses and cobbled lanes that deserves an hour, and the road toward it is fun.
Try a bowl of shopska salad and some grilled meat in a mehana, a traditional tavern, and finish with Bulgarian rakia.
- Shipka Pass
scenic · 1190 m
Shipka Pass is a modest height, about 1,190 metres, in the Balkan Mountains, but few passes in Europe carry so much memory. In the summer of 1877, during the war between Russia and the Ottoman Empire, a force of Russian soldiers and Bulgarian volunteers held this saddle against repeated attacks by a much larger Ottoman army, and their stand helped open the way to Bulgarian independence a few months later. The fighting was fierce, the casualties heavy, and the winter that followed killed more men from cold than from bullets.
The pass lies in the central Balkan range, which the Bulgarians call Stara Planina, the Old Mountain, and the road across it connects the town of Gabrovo on the northern side with the Valley of Roses and Kazanlak on the south. It is a classic mountain road, climbing through beech forest with tight bends and generous gradients, and the surface is generally decent, though in some places it is patched and rough. It is not a long or difficult pass, but it is a good one, with a quiet rhythm and a lot of green.
The weather is changeable. The ridge catches the weather coming from the north, so fog, cold wind and rain can arrive quickly, even in summer, and snow can lie on the road from late autumn until spring. If the forecast is poor, think about the descent, and take a layer for the top. A clear day brings a view southward over the rose valley, and northward over a rolling country of forest and farms.
The area around the pass is full of monuments, and the road is lined with signs and plaques. Just above the pass you can see the large memorial on Shipka Peak, and further down, in the village of Shipka, there is a Russian church with golden domes. Local shops sell souvenirs, honey and herbs, and there is a small snack bar near the top where you can have a coffee and a pastry.
Fuel is available at Gabrovo, about thirteen kilometres to the north, which is a real town with a long industrial history and a famous museum of humour. On the southern side, Kazanlak is the larger town. In late spring, when the roses begin to bloom in the valley below, this is a lovely time to cross.
- Shipka Memorial
scenic · 1190 m
The Freedom Monument on Shipka Peak is a tall stone tower on a bare summit, with a bronze lion carved into the base and a wide, wild view in every direction. It stands at about 1,300 metres above the pass, and it was completed in the 1930s to honour the men who fought and died in the defence of Shipka in 1877 and 1878. Reaching the top means climbing a long staircase of some nine hundred steps, which is a serious effort in motorcycle gear, and most riders are content to look at it from the car park and take a few photographs.
The monument commemorates the Russian soldiers and the Bulgarian volunteers, the opalchentsi, who held the pass against Ottoman forces. The peak is named for the Russian general Nikolai Stoletov, who commanded the defence in the first battle, and the Bulgarian volunteers were among the first soldiers of the modern Bulgarian state. In the winter that followed the main fighting, hundreds of Russian soldiers froze to death in their trenches, and the contrast between the quiet green slopes now and the brutal winter of 1877 is difficult to hold in the mind. Inside the monument there is a small hall with names and memorials, and from the top, the view over the Valley of Roses, with its rows of fields and the town of Kazanlak, is magnificent.
The road up from the pass is short and steep, with tight hairpins in the forest, and a surface that has suffered from frost. There is a car park at the foot of the stairs, and a few stalls sell drinks and souvenirs. At weekends and holidays, school groups and veterans' parties gather at the foot of the steps, and on national days, the peak is full of flags and speeches. Weather on the summit is often cold and misty, and the wind can be strong enough to make you lean on the railings.
The forest around the memorial is beech and fir, with some rare plants and a few deer and wild boar that you are unlikely to see. The smell of damp earth and resin is strong after rain. The best time to visit is a clear morning in late spring or early autumn, when the haze has not yet formed and the light is good for photography.
Shipka, about four kilometres from the monument, is a small town with basic facilities, and Gabrovo, fourteen kilometres away, is the nearest large town with proper stations and supermarkets. Take water, wear a layer and give yourself time to take the steps slowly if you do decide to climb them.
- Kazanlak
finish
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.
The town carries more history than its modern concrete suggests. On its edge is the Thracian Tomb of Kazanlak, from the fourth century BC, a small beehive chamber painted with vivid scenes of a funeral feast, and it is on the UNESCO list. The original is closed to protect the paintings, but an exact replica stands nearby and is worth the visit. The Thracians were master horsemen and goldsmiths who ruled this region before the Romans, and the valley is dotted with burial mounds that have yielded splendid treasures.
North of town the road climbs into the Balkan range toward the Shipka Pass, which reaches about 1,185 metres. The ascent winds through beech forest in a long series of bends, with good tarmac in most places and a few patches that suffer from frost damage. At the top stands a huge stone memorial to the 1877 to 1878 battles, in which Russian and Bulgarian volunteers held the pass against Ottoman attacks during the war that led to Bulgarian independence. The monument on Stoletov peak is reached by a long staircase, and the view south over the valley of roses is wide. Near the foot, the church of the Nativity, with its gold-topped domes, belongs to the Russian monastery at Shipka and glitters through the trees.
Fuel is easy, as Kazanlak is a real town with several stations, supermarkets and cafes. Bulgarian food is simple and good, with shopska salad, grilled meat and a very strong coffee, and prices are modest.
The pass can be wet and foggy at any time, and snow closes it in deep winter. The best months are May, June and September, when the days are warm and the valley is green.