Gorlo Canyon

The Arda is the longest river in the Rhodopes, and 17 km below its source it does something strange: it vanishes into the marble. Over thousands of years the water has cut a corridor through solid rock, and at one point the walls close to just over two metres apart while the river beneath runs more than four and a half metres deep and turns almost black. There is no path along the edge. The only way through is the way the water goes.

You take to a boat and glide into the gap. The light overhead narrows to a ribbon, the sound falls away to the dip of the oar, and for a few minutes the canyon has you entirely. Those minutes end before you are ready for them to, and you step back onto the bank with the feeling of a story left mid-sentence, one only the canyon can finish. The crossing is the closing note of the day tours from Mogilitsa, after the Nadarska Cave and either Rufinka's grave or the Kiselchovo waterfalls.

Combine the boat ride with a day programme including Nadarska Cave and either Rufinka’s grave or the Kiselchovo waterfalls. Day programmes require advance booking.