EZTrip.com International Destination Guide and Hotel Listings

The Greek frontier is just 20km south of Gotse. Gotse is a bit cut off from the main southbound routes and moving on can be problematic. Barring the 7.20am bus to Petrich (daily except Tues & Thurs) and a daily bus to Dospat in the Rhodope mountains, most head north towards Blagoevgrad, Bansko or Sofia, while the villages around Gotse receive a sparse service, often with buses only on alternate days.

There's also a spectacular road though the mountains to Rozhen and Melnik , but there are no buses and little traffic of any kind along its beaten-up eighty kilometres, with the road surface crumbling to bits in some places and covered with rock-fall debris in others. If you do attempt this route (and it is passable on rain-free days), then consider taking the detour to the village of PIRIN - 2km down a side road about 30km out of Gotse. Spectacularly located at the bottom of a high-mountain ravine, it's another place that seems to have been totally bypassed by the modern world, with new-fangled innovations like shops and motorcars conspicuous by their absence. Ancient stone houses perch improbably on the hillsides, while their inhabitants use four-legged transport to travel to and fro between the meagre patches of cultivable land.