Belogradchik Fortress

Worth a detour

Walls were built on two sides only. On the others, sandstone seventy metres high already did the job, and the Romans, the medieval Bulgarians and the Ottomans each in turn added to what the rock gave them. Three courtyards climb one behind the other, and the top one is an open scramble up steps with a long drop beside them. Not for anyone unsure on their feet.

Story

Background

What survives is mostly early nineteenth century. The walls run over two metres thick at the base and up to twelve high, enclosing a little over ten thousand square metres in three separate courtyards linked by gates, each one higher and smaller than the last. The upper yard is barely a yard at all — a pocket of ground between rock towers, with steps cut to the viewpoints above it.

The Romans built here first, and built lightly: this was a lookout rather than a strongpoint. In the fourteenth century Ivan Sratsimir extended it into the second most important fortification in his territory after Vidin itself. The Ottomans took it in 1396 and then, faced with persistent hajduk and insurgent activity in these hills, kept enlarging it. The wholesale rebuild came in the early nineteenth century, with French and Italian engineers involved, which is why parts of the masonry read oddly European for an Ottoman garrison.

It earned its place in Bulgarian memory the ugly way: the Belogradchik uprising of 1850 was put down from here. Its last use in war was the Serbo-Bulgarian War of 1885. It is now run by the town's history museum, and the ticket includes a guide or an audio guide starting every half hour.