The Devil's Throat cave

According to the legend from the Devil’s Throat cave in the Rhodopes, the underground kingdom can be reached. The legend tells that the greatest musician and enchanted singer Orpheus falls in love with the nymph Eurydice. The two married, but soon after the wedding the beloved maiden was bitten by a poisonous snake and died. Orpheus’s struggle was enormous. The singer decides to seek his beloved in the underground kingdom of Hades. Traditions in the region claim that for the journey of the musician to the sacred river Stix started at the Devil’s Throat cave near Trigrad.

The god of the underworld was bewitched by Orpheus’s magic harp and his love and decided to bring the couple back to the world of the living. But he has set a condition – the musician couldn’t look at his beloved until they come out of the realm of the dead. The worry that Eurydice might not follow it prevailed at Orpheus, he turned back, and the nymph had to return to the world of the dead again. It is this legend that recreates with a fiery spectacle during the mysteries every year in the Devil’s Throat Cave.

The cave itself, besides legends, also hides real secrets, as no one has ever been able to understand where the waters of the underground river are lost.  The Devil’s throat is so big that the Alexander Nevsky monument temple in Sofia can fit in it. Unlike years ago, the cave now is socialized and it is safe to visit it.