Bulgaria Guide
Things not to miss
1 Aleksandar Nevski Church, Sofia
• The capital's most striking edifice, built in Byzantine– Muscovite style, with an opulently decorated interior.
2 Trigrad Gorge
• This spectacular gorge lies deep in the Rhodope mountains and is the site of the stupendous Devil's Throat (Dyavolsko garlo) cave.
3 Mount Vitosha
• An easy bus ride from Sofia, the mountain is mobbed at weekends by city folk, who come to hike the dense forests in summer, or ski the slopes in winter.
4 Birdwatching
• Bulgaria is a paradise for ornithologists, particularly the unspoilt areas of Srebarna, Madzharovo and the lakes around Burgas.
5 Tombul Dzhamiya, Shumen
• A major spiritual centre for the Turks of the northwest, this is the outstanding example of the country's Ottoman-built mosques.
6 Bachkovo monastery
• Bulgaria's second-largest monastery is beautifully set in the Rhodope mountains, and boasts equally dazzling frescoes.
7 Varna Archeological Museum
• The Black Sea town of Varna is home to an outstanding museum of Thracian artefacts and Roman-era funerary sculpture.
8 The Shipka Pass
• Pay your respects at the Freedom Monument, where Bulgarian and Russian forces resisted a huge Turkish army in 1877.
9 Belogradchik
• Remote Belogradchik rewards a visit with its historic fortress surrounded by outlandishly twisted pinnacles of eroded sandstone.
10 Nesebar
• The rich Byzantine-Bulgarian civilization that thrived here in the late Middle Ages is still visible in Nesebar's narrow streets and numerous churches.
11 Church of the Nativity, Arbanasi
• An awe-inspiring example of the spiritual culture retained by the Bulgarians even at the height of the Ottoman occupation.
12 Beach-hopping
• The southern Black Sea coast is lined with vast stretches of white sand, best of all at Sinemorets.
13 Sozopol
• This ancient fishing village attracts a steady stream of day-trippers, but even in high summer there's still space to escape the crowds.
14 Koprivshtitsa
• This highland village is renowned for its role in the April Rising of 1876, when local revolutionaries heroically failed to unseat the occupying Ottoman powers.
15 Melnik
• The walk from this ancient wine-making village over the mountains to Rozhen Monastery takes you through a strange landscape of pyramid-shaped rock formations.
16 A night in Bansko
• Restaurants in the village of Bansko cater to crowds of Sofia folk at Easter time and in high summer, with their famous grilled food and live folk music.
17 Rila Monastery
• The most-visited monastic foundation in the country – a hoard of miracle-working relics and icons in its beautifully decorated church draws pilgrims year-round.
18 The Old Quarter, Plovdiv
• Many of the houses in this nineteenth-century quarter of town have been restored, with exquisitely carved wooden ceilings and fanciful wall paintings inside.
19 Veliko Tarnovo
• Perched above the twisting River Yantra, this ancient city is home to the vast fortified complex of Tsarevets, capital of the country's thirteenth-century tsars.
20 Thracian tombs
• Bulgaria's ancient inhabitants' burial mounds often preserve ornately decorated interiors – the best can be seen in Sveshtari and Kazanlak.
21 Heritage villages
• Many of Bulgaria's villages preserve the kind of stone- or timber-built farmhouses that have largely died out elsewhere in the Balkans. A number have been spruced up or rebuilt with tourism in mind – Shiroka Laka, Bozhentsi and Zheravna are four of the most evocative.