Sakar Mountain

Worth a detour

Sakar is a low dome of a range in the far south-east, between the Maritsa and the Tundzha, running down to the Turkish border and topping out at 856 metres. It is one of the richest raptor areas in the country and the stronghold of the eastern imperial eagle, and it is scattered with Thracian dolmens. There is almost no tourist infrastructure here, which is the point and also the problem.

Story

Background

This is not Stara Planina and it is a long way from it — Sakar sits in the far south-east corner of Bulgaria, pressed between the Maritsa, the Tundzha and the border, with Topolovgrad and Svilengrad as the nearest towns. Its highest point, Vishegrad, reaches 856 metres, and the whole range is rounded, open, grazed and hot.

Two things bring people. The first is birds. Sakar holds one of Europe's more significant populations of the eastern imperial eagle, along with other raptors that use the open grassland and scattered oak, and it forms part of the European Green Belt along the old Iron Curtain line — decades of restricted access on the border left the habitat in better condition than it would otherwise be. Conservation groups work here actively.

The second is megaliths. Dozens of Thracian dolmens stand in these hills, stone box tombs of the first millennium BC, along with rock-cut sanctuaries and later fortifications. Most of them are unsigned, sit in fields or scrub, and take local directions or a good map to find. That is the honest summary of visiting Sakar: the things worth seeing are real and mostly unmanaged, and you will need to work for them.