Alinsky Monastery Again, 2016

Photos from our hike to Alinsky Monastery on Plana Mountain. I've written about this old monastery, hidden in the depths of Plana mountain, as we first hiked to it last year in May. The trail is fairly easy and very pleasant and we loved it, even though the weather was cold and windy and there was some snow on the grass and leaves. The pictures are few and of low quality as instead of the DSLR we took the travel camera, which ran out of juice half the way, so the last pictures are by phone. Along these low mountain paths the beauty of the path is not in the scale, as when we hike high peaks and "real" mountains like Rila, Pirin, the Balkan, even Vitosha, but in the smaller details - trees, grass, flowers, drops of frost, rose hips, brown leaves and the DSLR is the better choice for such pictures, but still, let me give you at least some feel of today's hike along the frozen fields:

St. Kipryan  Chapel at the beginning of the trail:

Last night's rain down in Sofia here was evidently snow:

The only remaining church of Alinsky Monastery, built in XVI-XVII century.

And something new - a future mountain hut, probably. We had our lunch on the terrace of the green cabin, it was lovely to sit in the quiet and sip our hot tea and enjoy the view to the monastery and the surrounding hills.

We also reconnoitered a little around and found the remains of Alino Kale - the ruins of a medieval fortress, built to defend the monastery. Some of the wall, surrounding the hill, which overlooks the monastery, still remains standing centuries after the fortress was destroyed.

Back on the path to the village of Plana, with the snow covered peaks of Vitosha in the distance: