Tsentralen Balkan

Национален парк "Централен Балкан" — Central Balkan, in the English its directorate uses — is a strip about eighty-five kilometres long draped over the highest section of the Stara Planina, the range that gives the peninsula its name and divides Bulgaria in two. It was declared on 31 October 1991, recategorised by Заповед № 396 of 15 October 1999, and its area was restated as recently as March 2026 at 71,757.15 hectares. The park runs through five provinces and the ridge it follows is the watershed: rivers on the north side reach the Danube, rivers on the south the Maritsa and the Aegean.

Botev Peak, 2,376 metres, is the high point of the whole range, and it is named for Hristo Botev, the poet and revolutionary killed on the Vola summit nearby in 1876. Just below it the Byala reka drops off the southern escarpment as Raysko Praskalo — "heavenly spray" — which at 124.5 metres is the highest waterfall on the Balkan Peninsula. It is fed by snowmelt and is at its most convincing in May and June; by late summer it can be a thread. The southern slopes above Karlovo hold the part of the park called Dzhendema, from the Turkish for hell, and the name is a fair description of the terrain rather than a flourish — it is the most inaccessible ground in the country.

What the park is really for, though, is the forest. Nine strict reserves sit inside its boundary — Dzhendema, Steneto, Tsarichina, Stara reka, Severen Dzhendem, Boatin, Peeshti skali, Sokolna and Kozya stena — and in 2017 all nine were inscribed as Bulgarian components of the transnational UNESCO World Heritage site for the ancient and primeval beech forests of Europe. These are stands that have never been logged, some of the trees standing three hundred years, and the reserves together cover about 27% of the park. The wider designation record is unusually thick: a Council of Europe European Diploma, biosphere reserves under the Man and the Biosphere programme, and certification in 2003 as the first PAN Park in Bulgaria. Brown bear and wolf are resident, Balkan chamois were reintroduced onto the cliffs, and the crags hold golden eagle, Egyptian vulture and wallcreeper.

What's worth knowing before you go

The park is approached from both sides and the choice matters. From the south, Karlovo and Kalofer sit at the foot of the escarpment on the Sofia–Burgas railway, and Kalofer — Botev's birthplace — is the standard start for Botev Peak and Raysko Praskalo, with the Rai hut directly beneath the fall. From the north, Troyan, Apriltsi and Teteven give gentler, longer approaches through the beech, and Troyan has the monastery and the road over the pass. The Kom–Emine trail, the Bulgarian section of the E3, runs the length of the ridge and through the park.

June to September is the season, and the two sides genuinely differ: the southern escarpment is steep, hot and exposed, gaining well over a thousand metres in a single climb, while the northern approaches are shaded and forested most of the way. Ridge weather turns fast and the huts are spaced for it. The connoisseur's move is to ignore the summit and go into Boatin or Tsarichina instead — the reserves are open to walkers on marked routes, and standing in an unlogged beech stand where the canopy closes completely and nothing has been cut since before the Ottoman withdrawal tells you more about why this park exists than the view from Botev does.