River
Source of the Arda & Ardin Peak
A panoramic walk to the spring of the Arda beneath a century-old beech, with an optional climb to Ardin Peak (1,730 m) on the Greek border.
Every river has to begin somewhere. The Arda, the longest of all the Rhodope rivers in Bulgaria, begins here, in a quiet clearing a few hundred metres from the Greek border, welling up from beneath the roots of a beech a hundred years old. The marked path to it is a walk of wide open views, out over Gorna Arda and Bilyantsi toward Mount Kom and Golyam Perelik.
It passes the Dyad Ryaka lodge at the foot of Ardin Peak, where the trout is fresh and the food is honest mountain fare, then slips into cool forest and delivers you to the spring itself: a green place ringed with trees, with fire pits, benches and a shelter, made for lingering over a picnic longer than you meant to.
If the spring only sharpens your appetite for height, a marked trail carries on up to Ardin Peak, where the Bulgarian and Greek Rhodopes lie open on either side of the border that runs across the top. You can also loop back through Bilyantsi and the Geranitsa complex rather than the way you came.