Following our hike in Borovets Bulgaria we decided to test our leg muscles even further and headed off through the mountains to Rila National Park. We had read a few reviews about this place but it was rather vague as to where we actually needed to go for the chair lifts which would take us up the mountain where you can follow a trail around the Seven Lakes of Rila . The lakes are situated between 2,100 en 2,500 meters elevation.

The other point in Bulgaria is that a lot of signposts are only in Cyrillic and with sporadic use of the Latin alphabet. Luckily my husband knows the Cyrillic alphabet but it is still quite difficult to decipher everything. My advice is to just keep driving up the mountain and you will eventually come to an entrance to the park where you pay 5 euros, follow the road and you will get to the car park from which you can walk to the chair lifts.

The chair lift takes approximately 25 minutes, with stunning views and cool air. We passed a few gypsy camps on the way up and the horses transporting goods up the mountains. I have to admit to not being brilliant with heights, I cling on for dear life and hold my breath for the first 5 minutes and forbid anyone in the lift with me to move an hair breadth or even breathe loudly! Its not helped by my husband who likes to look at the engineering of the lifts and how they work and says things like “oh I see these have been built in parts, nowadays the supporting systems are built as one unit” and “Looks like those bolts need to be replaced, oh look, some bolts are missing there”. Intriguing information as my feet dangle 10 meters above the tree tops. I tell myself that everyone uses the ski-lifts and they are perfectly safe so why do I feel afraid.

I once looked into the phenomenon of acrophobia, and although I absolutely do not claim to suffer from this otherwise I wouldn’t been seen anywhere near a ski-lift let along sitting on one for 25 minutes

Let met assure you, Rila National Park has to be one of the best kept tourist secrets. It was amazing, the 7 Rila lakes each have their own name: Tear, Eye, Kidney, Twin, Trefoil, Fish and Lower Lake, there are many legend surrounding these lakes with the Tear lake forming due to sadness and loss. We did not do the climb to the Tear lake, as it was a really steep climb over pretty hazardous looking rocks and not for the faint hearted. The climb as far as the Eye was strenuous enough.

We walked for miles around the lakes, the scenery was amazing and the views as you got higher just made those tired legs keep moving. There were no real signposts but with plenty of people around, some of whom seemed to know the way to go it was easy to find our way.

As you can see it is pretty rugged and necessary to watch your footing, and remember the temperature at this height will be a few degrees lower than at ground level, on a hot summers day like this it is more than welcome!

We were fortunate that it wasn’t very busy when we visited but we understand that during Bank Holidays (Bulgarian) and weekends it can be very busy there, so chose your moment wisely. There are also plenty of hikes available, from one day to 3 or 4 day hikes where you can stay in allocated “huts” overnight.