Maslen nos

Worth a detour

The cape south of the Ropotamo mouth is protected for its rock formations, its abrasion corridors — locals call them fiords — and its caves, including one named for the monk seals that no longer exist here. Unlike the reserve inland, it is not closed: you may walk on it. There is no path worth the name, no water and no shade, and the coastline is genuinely dangerous in a swell.

Story

Background

The landmark covers about seventeen and a half hectares and was declared in 1973, for the rock formations, the fiords and the seal cave in the Maslen Nos locality. The Mediterranean monk seal used the Bulgarian coast within living memory and is now treated as locally extinct; the cave keeps the name.

What has taken over is bats. Thirteen species have been recorded in the sea caves here, and the large colonies are present only in June and July, which is exactly when the most people are about. Entering the caves is prohibited. The surrounding protected site, which covers more than seven hundred hectares and runs inland to Beglik Tash, bans new construction and clear-felling but expressly permits bathing on the sand strip, so the beaches here are legal in a way the Ropotamo beach is not.

On the cape itself are the remains of a fortress of antique and medieval date, listed as a monument of national significance and entirely unpresented. There is a lighthouse at the point. Access is on foot from the Beglik Tash side or along the coast, and it takes longer than the map suggests because the ground is broken. Go early, take water, and stay back from the edges: the abrasion corridors are undercut, unfenced and deeper than they look.