Bistritza Aleko 2025

I've been so berried in work and engagements lately, that I have time neither for my hobbies nor for blogging. Gaby was visiting us, then her boyfriend joined us and we had some wonderful time together. Meanwhile husband and I have been using every possibility to hike in the mountains, as summer is so short and before we know it, it will be over. I don't want to leave blanks in my diary blog, so here is a short recap of our previous hike.

Last Friday husband and I decided to do a repeat of a route we designed two years ago - from the village of Bistritza to Aleko hut along the Bistritza river and then back to Bistritza along the Yanchovska river. Both trails run through the Bistrishko banishte preserved area.

The trails are picturesque and fairly easy, despite the significant altitude gain.

The major impediment to our progress were actually not the rivers, the steepness or the insects, but the ripe raspberries :) They were really plentiful,extra big and super ripe and sweet. We ate, until we had stomach pains and then we decided to collect some, filling our lunch boxes with soft berries.

Hike info:

Date:  15 August 2025

Destination: Aleko Hut, round trail

Mountain: Vitosha

Total length: 16 km

Elevation gain: 740 m

Total duration (plus picnic and rests): 5 and a half hours with raspberry picking and eating

Average difficulty: 5 / 10 

The day was a bit cloudy, with some chillness at Aleko hut.

We had our lunch at the hut - tortillas and the hit of the summer - cinnamon cookies.

On the way back we continued to fill the lunch boxes with raspberries, until we got fed up with eating and picking. The trail along Yanchovska river is probably a bit steeper, but very scenic and beautiful, I liked it a lot.

Me-made items, worn on this hike:

Husband: boxer shorts, Burda blouse, Burda hoodie

I: lingerie, Love Notions LDT tunic, Love Notions joggings

As we got home, we decided to make raspberry jam with the berries we had gathered and for our efforts we got four and a half jars of very delicious jam - probably the best I've made so far our of raspberries. The quality of the fruit does matter and these were really superb berries. If we decide to hike there next year, we'll probably should eat less and gather more :)

Peak Ushite, Rila 2025

Last Saturday Gaby, husband and I did one of the best hike for this year, to peak Ushite in Rila. The trail is new to us and was very interesting, challenging and extremely rewarding.

The day was sunny and warm, absolutely perfect for a hike in Rila. We started from the parking lot at the Central Mountain Station towards hut Malyovitza.

The trail to the hut winds by the Malyovitza river.

Hut Malyovitza - we filled our bottles of water here and continued towards the first terrace - this part of the trail coincides with the trail to peak Malyovitza.

Me-made items, worn on this hike:

Husband: boxers, Burda T-shirt

I: lingerie, Burda raglan T-shirt, Burda shorts, Love Notions Sabrina Slims

From the first terrace our trail takes a detour through the steep Ovcharski chute.

Up the chute towards the ridge

Finally we are near the Malyovitza lakes

We passed by the first lake 

and stopped for a short break at the second of the three lakes.

The place was packed with ripe blueberries and we ate handfuls of them.

At the third lake - the three lakes are connected by a small river.

On the ridge towards peak Ushite

A view to the three lakes from above

Peak Ushite - a very peculiar looking rock formation

The objective is achieved -  on peak Ushite

The vast views towards the valley of Urdina river, peak Malyovitza above us and the sea of Rila peaks near and far was so breathtaking!

Here we saw three falcons and an eagle - I hadn't seen one in ages - they are really big and impressive!

Hike info:

Destination: Ushite peak round trail (2547 m)

Mountain: Rila

Total length: 16 km

Elevation gain: 850 m

Total duration (plus picnic and rests): 7 hours

Average difficulty: 7 / 10

On the way back we took an alternative trail down the opposite slope of Ushite, through the grass, directly down to the first Malyovitza lake.

Walking down through the grass valley without any trail was surprisingly very pleasant

By the first Malyovitza lake

From the lakes we took the long and very steep Rabbit trail back to Malyovitza hut. A herd of wild deer ran past us and up the nearby slope, where they stopped to graze!

Unlike on other hikes, when going down is the easy part, the Rabbit trail was so steep, that going down it was quite an adventure

This hike was definitely one of the highlights of our hiking season this summer!

Cinnamon Biscuits

My new favourite biscuits - I've been making these regularly and the recipe is definitely a keeper. I tried it with melted butter and with a combination of butter and sunflower oil, but surprisingly, these are better with vegetable oil, IMHO.

Ingredients:

• 1 egg
• 60 g oil
• 75 g sugar
• 220 g flour
• 5 g baking powder
• pinch of salt 
• spices

Preparation:

Lightly beat the egg with the sugar, add the oil and the spices. I make my own mix of cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg and aniseed and add about a teaspoon of that, but you can add as much or as little to taste. Mix in the flour with the baking powder and form a pliable, but not sticky dough. Separate the dough into twenty small balls and press each ball between your palms to form a cookie. You can put aside a tablespoon of the sugar and press each cookie into the sugar, to sugarcoat it. You can also improvise some design on top of the cookies, as I did with the help of a fork.

Bake in a warm oven at 180C until the cookies turn lightly brown. Serve cooled with coffee or tee.

I had an idea to use the same dough to make a pie crust, so I made a blackberry custard pie. It was really delicious and the dough is perfect for pie crust, but the cinnamon taste was a bit overwhelming, so probably vanilla or no spices next time.