Our Christmas Hike to Planinitza

I've been so busy this holiday season, that I simply didn't have time to blog and I have a lot of catching up to do. I might skip some of the posts I meant to publish, but I can't miss our Christmas hike in the mountain of Cherna Gora, from the village of Planinitza to peak Tumba and back.

This last half of December the weather in and around Sofia was absolutely beautiful, sunny and warm for the season. As is already a tradition for our family, on Christmas day husband, daughter and I went on a hike and we chose probably the best place for this time of the year - peak Tumba. 

While driving to the village of Planinitza, we passed through an area with very thick fog and we were worried that the beautiful sunny day, which we had welcomed in the morning in Sofia, would be wasted due to bad location choice. Luckily, once we took the turn to the village of Planinitza, the sky cleared and the sun was up above, warm and shining.

The views to the areas below the mountain were absolutely stunning - it looked as if we were at the shore of a sea, with archipelagos of islands, formed by the peaks of the countless mountains in the Kraishte region.

Hike info:

Destination: peak Tumba (1129 m)

Mountain: Cherna Gora

Total length: 14 km

Elevation gain: 230 m

Total duration (plus picnic): 4 and a half hours

Average difficulty: 3 / 10

Me-made items, worn on this hike:

Husband: men's boxers, hat, Cargo pants, socks

I:  lingerie, socks, hat, Wine red hybrid blouse, Purple Burda hoodie

Gaby: lingerie, hat, socks, raglan Burda blouse, Tweed hoodie

We had a long and delicious picnic at the base of the peak, basking in the warm December sun, and then slowly returned along the same trail to the car, enjoying every minute of it with our grown beautiful, clever and adventurous daughter.