Lisagora Panoramic Tower

The newest thing in the Upper Arda stands nineteen metres up in the air. The Lisagora tower is a slender steel climb above the bald summit of Lisa Gora, and it exists for one reason: to hand you the whole horizon at once, a clean 360 degrees over the headwaters of the Arda and the Central Rhodopes.

On a clear day the view quietly leaves the country. It reaches Mount Veykata, the highest point of the Eastern Rhodopes and the southernmost point of Bulgaria, crosses to the Greek giants Falakro and Pangaion, and picks out a shoulder of far-off Pirin. Somewhere in that sweep, twenty-two villages and hamlets sit small enough to cover with a thumb.

You reach it on foot from Shirok Most, following the yellow markers, or by hired jeep from the centre of Mogilitsa. Fill your bottle early either way: there is a single fountain near the start of the walk and nothing after it.