Alinsky Monastery March 2025

What a perfect day was it today for hiking! Sunny, warm, without being hot, quiet and with almost no wind. The beloved trail from the village of Plana to Alinsky monastery and back was completely empty and the only fly in the honey, a very tiny fly, was the mud - because of the cold and snow during the week the trail was quite slippery and muddy at places.

Amazing, there was even snow. It is definitely this week's snow, as there's no way there was snow there last week, when the temperatures were in the high 20es.

Hike info:

Date:  21 March 2025

Destination: Alinsky Monastery

Mountain: Plana

Total length: 13 km

Elevation gain: 200 m

Total duration (plus picnic and rests): 4 hours

Average difficulty: 3 / 10

Me-made items, worn on this hike:

 

I: lingerie, Lotte Sinclair blouse, ankle warmers

Husband: men's boxers, Burda cargo pants, orange blouse

It is still early for the trees on Plana and though it was warm, the grass is still brown and the trees are still bare. The only flowers we saw were plenty of purple crocuses and green hellebores. 

We had our usual picnic on the hill above the church, with this wonderful view to the snowy peaks of Rila - who wouldn't hike for 13 km to have a lunch with such a view :) !

One of the big attractions of this route for me in springtime is the crisp clear view to Rila. This scenery never gets old!