Plana, Manastirishte in December

This is the first blue sky I've seen in a long time. Sofia is again under heavy clouds and smog and the sun, if it ever manages to break through, shines upon us from leaden skies. 

When we started from Sofia today the skies were grey again and soon after the exit of the city we enter into a very heavy fog, which only grew thicker and colder. The phenomenon had formed between Vitosha and Plana mountains and was holding the villages of Bistritza and Zheleznitza under an almost impenetrable cover. Unfortunately, we saw there had been a car accident, even though everybody was driving as slowly and as carefully as possible. And then we took the deviation for the village of Plana and - oh, magic! - as if cut with a knife after a turn the fog disappeared and the sun was shining and the sky was visible and blue. I'm sun a sun driven person that I immediately felt myself smiling and laughing. 

I was so happy we chose peak Manastirishte for our hiking goal today!

Hike info:

Destination: peak Manastirishte (1338 m)

Mountain: Plana

Total length: 7 km

Elevation gain: 160 m

Total duration (plus picnic): 2 h

Average difficulty: 2 / 10

This time I gave the short hike two difficulty points, as the tracks were muddy and sticky, so difficult to walk, but we kept a very brisk pace and climbed the peak in less than 50 min. As we arrived on top, it felt we had had a very good exercise.

Holy Spirit Chapel on top of the peak

Me-made items, worn on this hike:

 

Husband:socks, hat

I: lingerie, socks, hat, gloves, my purple Pull Irlandais

The heavy fog between Vitosha and Plana

We had our picnic at "our place"  - a bunch of rocks near the foot of the peak on a meadow of thick high grass and I even had a 10 min bask in the sun - as we see it so rarely lately, one has to enjoy it fully when one can :)