The county of Vidin is 200 km away from the capital of Bulgaria, Sofia. Its location has determined the easy accessibility of the place and its major role in both national and international transport network. The town of Vidin is the largest town in the county, important administrative centre and major port on the Danube river. The historical past of the town is evinced by the numerous architectural and historical monuments, the most famous among them being the medieval fortress “Baba Vida”, the other fortress “Kaleto”, the Turkish “konak”, or town-hall by the name of “Koluka”, a mosques\' ensemble. The town of Vidin is situated on the road Vidin – Montana – Vratza – Botevgrad – Sofia, part of the European route E79. There are daily scheduled intercity and ordinary trains to and from the town of Mezdra and Sofia. The county of Vidin itself occupies the north-western part of the Danubian plain. Its whole territory consists of the Vidin lowland, stretching from the curve of the Danube river by the town of Vidin to the south-western uplands. The county encompasses huge lands – plains, hills with small forests. The town of Vidin itself forms a semicircle with streets and buildings facing the river. Along the river coast there is an enormous park with recreational spots and beaches. The town of Belogradchik is sited on the two mountain ridges “Venetza” and “Vedernik” and is encircled by the fantastic phenomenon of the Belogradchik Rocks. One of the landmarks of the town is the Belogradchik fortress. It was built in the third century A.D. and was the official residence of the Vidin tzar Ivan Sratzimir during the XIII century A.D. The “Magoura” cave is another local landmark , only 30 km away from the town of Belogradchik. The rock paintings, preserved there, are dated back to the IX – VIII century B.C. The town offers excellent opportunities for specialized tourism for speleologists, with horizontal dry caves filled with water and abysses, a great number of them still unexplored, which are real challenges for extreme sport lovers, and the cave explorers club “White bat” can supply excellent equipment and experienced speleologists as guides. The small town of Kula is located in North-western Bulgaria. It is some 32 km away from the town of Vidin and only 13 km away from the Bulgarian-Serbian border. It is near the town where the hill with the entrance to the famous cave “Magoura” is sited. The very town of Kula is built around the remnants from the Roman fortress Castra Martis, which can be seen in the centre of the town. The European transport route number 4 is the shortest way from the countries of Western Europe to those in Central and Eastern Europe. The construction of the second bridge across the Danube river near the town of Vidin will certainly boost its importance. The Vidin county has a duty-free zone, large unoccupied industrial premises, a national plan for development and restructuring of the local economy, an opportunity to set up a Euroregion for trans-border cooperation. The county has also the full support of the local business community, boasts ecologically clean environment, good infrastructure, qualified workforce and together with the county\'s commission for institutional support of investors, which implements the local policy for fostering of foreign investments and the good network of shops and markets plus its customs\' and border officials, who are always ready to help, the place is perfect for setting up your own business. The village of Chuprene is 75 km to the south of the town of Vidin. Its territory is 330 square kilometres and it has a population of 3300 people. The main occupation here is agricultural – sheep and she-goat breeding, orchards, wood-sawing. The other villages in the neighbourhood have very exotic names: Varbovo, Turgovishte, Protopopintzi, Sredogriv, Replyana, Gorni Lom and Dolni Lom. The local environment favours different kinds of tourist activity – rural, cognitive, hunting and angling tourism, long strolls and horse riding, herbs picking. The local biosphere reserve “Chuprene” with its total area of 15 hectares, under the protection of UNESCO, also offers good prerequisites for cognitive and ecotourism. The county of Vidin is clearly of moderate climate, with very cold winter with scarce precipitation and a hot summer with maximum precipitation.
