past tumbling rivers and stone bridges dating back to Roman times.
The article described Bulgaria and its neighbours Greece, Turkey and Romania, as being once the land of the Thracians, a rival civilisation to ancient Troy and Rome. The two greatest half-real, half-myth heroes of Thrace were Spartacus, a warrior and Orpheus,

a musician of bewitching beauty and charisma.
According to legend, when Orpheus's bride-to-be, Euridice, was fatally bitten by a serpent on their wedding day, he went down into the Underworld through the Devil's Throat cavern

to play his lute to its presiding deities, Hades and Persephone, and so charm them into giving Euridice back to him.
Orpheus reclaimed Euridice by promising not to look at her during their return from the Underworld. But on the climb through the Devil's Throat cave,

the thunder of the waterfalls drowned her footfall; he turned to check that she was still behind him, and so lost her forever. A tiny spring bubbling out of the rock wall symbolises his remorseful tears.