Our destination today was the Rila National Park and we took the freeway out of Sofia. We weren't far out of Sofia when police diverted us off the freeway onto a local road. A bit further on we could see that there wasn't an accident but kilometer after kilometer of empty trucks parked on the freeway, obviously another protest about the transport changes.
The Rila National Park is known as Seven Rila Lakes and we drove up the mountain to the foot of the chair lift. There were lots of cars parked there, we had timed it so we wouldn't be there on a weekend as it is a popular day trip for people who live in Serbia. During winter it is a ski resort but in summer it is a popular hiking spot. It was lunch time when we arrived and we were surprised to find that there wasn't anywhere to buy something to eat.
We caught probably the longest chairlift ride we have ever taken, it was about 25 minutes to the start of the hiking trail. There was a lodge there so we hoped to get some lunch but there wasn't even a drink to be bought. We hiked up a steep incline for about 40 minutes and were rewarded with the picturesque view of three of the seven lakes plus many patches of snow. We would have needed to hike much further to the next spot but we weren't sure how much more time we'd need so we turned back. The weather was beautiful, an ideal day for a mountain walk, by the time we had come back down the mountain and were getting in the car we could hear thunder and there was the start of rain, so we felt smug that we had timed our return so well.
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