Botev Trail, Kozloduy to Okolchitsa
Ботев път (Козлодуй - Околчица)
The 120 km route of Hristo Botev's rebel band in 1876, from the Danube bank at Kozloduy to Okolchitsa peak in the Vratsa Balkan, walked each year in a national march.
At a glance
- Starts in
- Kozloduy, Danube bank
- Ends in
- Okolchitsa peak
- Length
- 120 km
- On foot
- 7 days
- Countries
Bulgaria
About the trail
In the spring of 1876, as the April Uprising against Ottoman rule broke out, the poet and revolutionary Hristo Botev and a band of about 200 men took over the Austrian steamer Radetzky on the Danube and landed on the Bulgarian bank near Kozloduy. They marched south towards the mountains, fighting as they went, and Botev was killed in the Vratsa Balkan near Okolchitsa a few days later. On 2 June Bulgaria still remembers him and all who died for the country's freedom.
The walking route retraces the band's path from the Kozloduy bank across the farmland and villages of north-western Bulgaria to the foot of the Vratsa mountains, then climbs to the summit of Okolchitsa, where a memorial marks the place associated with his death.
The rules for the 77th national march in 2025, issued with the Vratsa Regional Administration as main organiser, describe the 120 km 'Botev path' walked in a single column from 27 May to 2 June, from the Kozloduy bank to Okolchitsa peak. The detailed stage programme is published separately each year by the regional administration.