Sunday Trip #1 Cave "Prohodna" a.k.a "The Eyes of God" and "Saint Marina" Monastery

Today I would like to share with you the Sunday trip we made along with my girlfriend and my very good friend @xtrex.

The destination was Prohodna Cave or also called "The Eyes of God". It is a remarkable place to visit.

The cave is located in the North-Western part of Bulgaria, near a small village called Karlukovo, around 100 km from the capital Sofia. It is easily reached by car. There is a road and parking place literally in front of the cave, along with small souvenir shops for the tourists.

Being a lazy tourist, this idea appealed to me and the initial idea was just to go to the cave, look around and leave.

Being not a lazy tourist and an adventurer by heart, my friend @xtrex, who was also our guide, since he visited the place several times before disagreed on that idea and instead decided to show us "the hidden views" of the area.

These were the results.

After we enjoyed the beauties of the Iskar river and our beautiful mountains, we decided to head to the cave. My friend @xtrex showed us a hidden path in the woods, which led us to the back entrance of the cave.

Here you could see the cave in the distance.

After few meters of climbing and several mosquito bites later, we finally reached the cave.

But again, our guide had different plan for the trip. Instead of going straight to the cave we went exploring the woods around it. As a result, we found a smaller cave right next to Prohodna where this hilarious sign was left for the public to read.

It says "Please do not poop in the cave ! Do not throw your trash ! Teach your trash to walk to the recycle bin."

And for the foreign tourist, a smaller sign was left on the ground, which as you can see says "DO NOT POOP HERE!"

At first I found it hilarious, but as we entered the cave, we understood why the signs were posted. I won't get into details, but fortunately all the poop was cleaned and there was only plastic trash left. I bet such signs could only be found on the Balkans.

Anyway, we continued exploring "the hidden" paths in the woods and we heard from other tourists that there is a monastery nearby. On our way to it, another funny sign ''appeared".

In short reads: "The road to the monastery is hard and full of obstacles. The road will take you to the monastery, only if you are true Christians who carry God in your hearts. If you are only tourists, the place for selfies, snack and drink is the restaurant above. If you take the road to the monastery, leave your pride and be humble or your effort will be meaningless."

I found this sign really funny, since I am not a religious person. To be honest I was really curious what this "hard road" is really about. I was not left disappointed.

It was in fact a tricky one, on the edge of the cliff. The only thing you can hold on is a metal rope attached to the rocks.

Finally we reached the monastery called "Saint Marina". It is a really small monastery, built in the XIV century. It survived the 500 year slavery during the Ottoman Empire and ironically was almost fully demolished during the '80-90s of the last century. In the years between 2006 and 2015 it was slowly rebuilt by good people who donated money and hard work. This is the result we found today.

The details in the paintings were just amazing.

After our short stay at the monastery we headed back to the "original destination" - cave Prohodna.

Cave Prohodna formed before 68 million years. It is the longest cave passage in Bulgaria. It is 365 metres long and it's entrances are 56 metres high. The cave has a unique look because of the two naturally formed holes in it's ceiling known as "The Windows" or "The Eyes of God".

Because of its incredible formation, the cave attracted a lot of attention and several foreign and Bulgarian movies were filmed inside of it. Archaelogists speculate that in the past the cave was important place for the native population to practice different occult rituals. Prohodna cave is one of the few caves in Bulgaria where cave-bungee jumps are practiced.

If you have the opportunity to visit this place, you must do it. I will certainly return to it more than once !

Sources:

1. Wikipedia

2. Opoznai.bg