Bulgaria - Day 9

Today the plan is to climb Musala, the highest peak in Bulgaria and the Balkan peninsula. After an early breakfast we went by minibus to the ski resort of Borovets.

From there the gondola took us up to 2369m

We walked across a few ski slopes to get to the hut at the bottom of the main ascent. Eduard was checking the weather with the meteorological service, the opinion was that we would have enough time to get to the top and part way down before any storms came in.

We walked up the steep but fairly easy ascent. At one point there was a clean rock face which Eduard said must have been a recent rock fall as it hadn't been there the previous week.

We made it to the top just before the clouds came down. Musala, 2925m. There's a weather station and a scientific research station at the top.

On the descent we made it to a shelter before a heavy hailstorm. We did have to set off in the rain though, the first time in the week we'd had to do this.

The rain had stopped by the time we got to the hut at the bottom of the slope.

We made our way back to the top gondola station, and stopped there for a while for a drink. We then caught the gondola back down and drove back to the hotel.

Dinner that night was Bulgarian Moussaka, a dish made with potato, egg and mince, with no aubergine.