2 stops in walking order

Nature

The Trigrad Gorge is a canyon of vertical marble rocks in the Rhodope Mountains, part of the Dobrostan Formation (Proterozoic). It is in Smolyan Province, one of the southernmost provinces of Bulgaria. The gorge encloses the course of the Trigradska River, which plunges into the Devil's Throat Cave and 530 metres (1,740 ft) further emerges as a large karst spring. It later flows into the River Buynovska. The gorge's west wall reaches 300 metres (980 ft) in height, while the east one extends up to 300–350 metres (980–1,150 ft). Initially, the two walls are about 300 m apart, but the gorge narrows to about 100 metres (330 ft) in the northern section. The gorge is 1.2 kilometres (0.75 mi) from the village of Trigrad at 1,450 metres (4,760 ft) above sea level and has a total length of 7 kilometres (4.3 mi), of which the gorge proper comprises 2–3 kilometres (1.2–1.9 mi). The Trigrad Gorge forms one of only three river-carved gorges in the world cut entirely through pure marble ranking alongside Bhedaghat Gorge in Jabalpur, India and Taroko Gorge in Taiwan.

~20 min at this stop

Cave

Devil's Throat Cave, or Dyavolsko Garlo, is located in the western Rhodopes close to the village of Gyovren in Bulgaria, near its border with Greece. A popular tourist attraction, Devil's Throat branches from Trigrad Gorge. The cave’s entrance resembles a devil’s head, and down its throat rushes a massive waterfall that from ancient times has given birth to numerous legends. It is a fact that nothing carried by the river into The Devil’s Throat Cave emerges back from it. Many attempts have been made to track pieces of wood and other material through the cave, but they all vanish without a trace in the underground river. Experiments performed with dyes have shown that it takes more than an hour and a half for the water to traverse the short distance from one opening to the next, fueling speculations about an extensive system of underground streams in the cave.

~20 min at this stop