Village of Mugla, The Rhodopes Mountain
The village of Mugla is located in the immediate proximity of the Bulgarian – Greek border by a side road starting between Teshel and Gzhovren (the last village before the Trigrad Gorge), or by hiking from Trigrad (4-5hr). The trail from Trigrad begins as a dirt track by the farm buildings across the bridge between the chalet and the village. It soon leads to a karst plateau where you bear right along a path onto a ridge with drinking fountains to rejoin the track and follow it as far as a highland meadow, where a cart track to the left and then a forest path provide a short-cut to a sharp bend in the dirt track. Here you turn right and follow it down to a tarmac road in the Lividitsa Valley, running past the lakeside beauty spot of Livadite. Follow the pylons beyond the final lake till you reach a fork in the trail, and head right uphill to arrive in Mugla thirty minutes later.
On the first Sunday in August, musicians from all over the region get together to blow their gaidi, at Mugla's annual bagpipe festival. A speciality of the Rhodopes, the huge, deep-voiced kaba gaida accompanies singing or plays dance music, alone or in concert with other bagpipes, and Mugla's festival is a rare chance to hear the awesome sound of Sto kaba gaidi - one hundred of them playing together.
Places near by: Smolian | Banite | Borino | Bugutevo | Chepelare | Devin | Dospat | Gela | Madan | Momchilovcy | Mugla | Nedelino | Pamporovo ski resort | Rudozem | Shiroka Luka | Stoikite | Trigrad | Yagodina | Zlatograd |
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