Zlatnite Mostove or Golden Bridges is a stone river on the slope of the Vitosha Mountain just outside of Bulgaria’s capital. Located only about a 30 minute drive from Sofia you can find this incredible river of boulders, some of them larger than a car.
Last winter, when I was visiting Sofia, me an @lebrute found ourselves with a cloudless sky. True, we only had about an hour between the moonset and the sunrise, but we decided to give it a go anyway. After arriving at the parking we made our way up a path that could only be described as a miniature ski slope, which took us way longer than expected. Luckily we were early, it turns out there is not a lot of traffic on the Sofian roads at 4 in the morning on a Wednesday…
After setting up our cameras, and setting the timer, we slid back to the car. We decided not to stay out in the freezing cold as we were hoping to get home with all our fingers and all our toes. After about 30 minutes warming up in the car we already noticed a faint light in the sky, so we climbed back up the slope and found that it had already gotten to light to continue shooting.
In the end I ended up with about 75 usable shots, each 30 seconds long. The bright light you can see over the horizon are not the city lights of Sofia, nor any other city, they are actually the first rays of the sun welcoming the new dawn.
I will surely go back to this place, this stone river is absolutely epic, and many more shots await me there, I can just feel it. Unfortunately, with the snow and ice, this place was just to dangerous to explore any further this winter, so I have to go back in the summer.
If you know of some good spots along Zlatnite Mostove, please do drop me a line!
I hope you enjoy my photos as much as I do. If you do, why not follow me on Instagram: @jackoleenders. It will help me out greatly!
Camera: Olympus PEN E-PL7
Lens: 7artisans 7.5MM F2.8 Fisheye
Shot at: 7.5mm | F/2.8 | ISO3200 | ~38 min (stack)