The back story
Wild Sofia: Vitosha and the City's Great Parks
The oldest nature park in the Balkans on the city's doorstep, great parks of avenues and lakes, and the Seven Rila Lakes a day away: the wild side of Sofia.
Photo Credit
Image courtesy of © Иван · CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia CommonsThe natural side of Sofia, from Vitosha Nature Park, the oldest nature park in the Balkans, to Borisova Gradina and South Park and the Seven Rila Lakes, with a directory of the parks in our guide and our regional long read on Balkan wildlife.
Sofia lives with a mountain at the end of its streets. Vitosha rises right above the southern suburbs, protected as the oldest nature park in the Balkans, with trails, huts, the Boyana waterfall and Cherni Vrah, its summit. In the city, Borisova Gradina and South Park are great green spaces of avenues, lakes, meadows and streams.
This is a short, honest guide to Sofia's natural side: the mountain and the great parks. For the Seven Rila Lakes and the wildlife of the wider region, see our guides and our Balkans long read.
Sofia's mountain is the oldest nature park in the Balkans.
Vitosha Nature Park
Vitosha Nature Park protects the mountain at Sofia's doorstep. Trails climb from the city's edge through forest to open meadows, mountain huts, the Boyana waterfall and Cherni Vrah, the summit; in summer the high meadows are bright with wild flowers.
Borisova Gradina and South Park
Borisova Gradina, Tsar Boris's Garden, is Sofia's oldest and best-loved park, laid out from the 1880s: avenues, lakes and woods east of the centre. South Park stretches south from the National Palace of Culture, with meadows and streams, a wilder, more natural park than the formal gardens of the centre.
Feature: the Seven Rila Lakes
A day south of Sofia, the Seven Rila Lakes lie one above another in a staircase of glacial basins high in the Rila Mountains, among the great natural sights of Bulgaria. In summer a chairlift helps you up; go in good weather, start early, and bring warm layers and water.
Did you know? Vitosha Nature Park, at Sofia's doorstep, is the oldest nature park in the Balkans.
Our advice
Our advice: take a bus up Vitosha early on a summer weekday and walk to Cherni Vrah or the Boyana waterfall, with water, a jacket and good shoes; spend an afternoon in Borisova Gradina. Keep to the marked trails, and take your rubbish home.
Why it's on our list
- Vitosha Nature Park
- Borisova Gradina and South Park
- Feature: the Seven Rila Lakes
- Our advice
Location
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More in depth
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