1. Bansko
Buzzing Bansko is Bulgaria’s premier ski resort and the most snow-sure in the country. Sunshine, thumping après-ski culture, and pistes at altitudes from 900m to 2600m draw locals, Brits and Russians each winter. As more and more hotels sprout up, overdevelopment in Bansko is a looming concern. This Pirin Mountains town gets mighty hectic during ski season; expect queuing bottlenecks on the main gondola lift from town. Bansko isn’t a faceless resort, though. The cobblestoned old town is speckled with 19th-century National Revival mansions and worthy museums. These stone-and-timber houses were buttressed by fortress-style walls, once holding hidden escape routes, protecting their inhabitants from the Turks. Unlike many other ski towns, Bansko doesn’t hibernate in summer and it makes a convenient base to explore pristine Pirin National Park, south of town. Visitors charmed by Bansko can only hope that development eases off, to preserve the character of this snow-and-sunshine town.
Buzzing Bansko is Bulgaria’s premier ski resort and the most snow-sure in the country. Sunshine, thumping après-ski culture, and pistes at altitudes from 900m to 2600m draw locals, Brits and Russians each winter. As more and more hotels sprout up, overdevelopment in Bansko is a looming concern. This Pirin Mountains town gets mighty hectic during ski season; expect queuing bottlenecks on the main gondola lift from town. Bansko isn’t a faceless resort, though. The cobblestoned old town is speckled with 19th-century National Revival mansions and worthy museums. These stone-and-timber houses were buttressed by fortress-style walls, once holding hidden escape routes, protecting their inhabitants from the Turks. Unlike many other ski towns, Bansko doesn’t hibernate in summer and it makes a convenient base to explore pristine Pirin National Park, south of town. Visitors charmed by Bansko can only hope that development eases off, to preserve the character of this snow-and-sunshine town.
2. Sofia
Bulgaria's pleasingly laid-back capital is often overlooked by visitors heading straight to the coast or the ski resorts, but they're missing something special. Sofia is no grand metropolis, but it's a largely modern, youthful city, with a scattering of onion-domed churches, Ottoman mosques and stubborn Red Army monuments that lend an eclectic, exotic feel. Recent excavation work carried out during construction of the city’s metro unveiled a treasure trove of Roman ruins from nearly 2000 years ago, when the city was called 'Serdica'. Away from the buildings and boulevards, vast parks and manicured gardens offer a welcome respite, and the ski slopes and hiking trails of mighty Mt. Vitosha are just a short bus ride from the centre. Home to many of Bulgaria's finest museums, galleries, restaurants and clubs, Sofia may persuade you to stick around and explore further.
3. Belogradchik
The crisp mountain air and the weird and wonderful rock formations that rise from a lonely horizon of hills are what draw visitors to little Belogradchik, on the eastern edge of the Stara Planina mountain range. Although rather remote, Belogradchik’s charms are starting to attract more visitors.
4. Sunny Beach (Slânchev Bryag)
Bulgaria’s biggest purpose-built seaside resort, Sunny Beach (Slânchev Bryag) is the Black Sea coast’s hyperactive answer to the Spanish costas, and probably the most expensive place in the country. The appeal is clear, though, with several kilometres of sandy beach that attracts more international sun worshippers than any other resort in the country. The beach is one of Bulgaria’s finest, with every imaginable activity from minigolf to parasailing, and restaurants and clubs abound. If you’re just looking to top up your tan by day and go clubbing all night, this is the place to come. You won’t even notice that you’re in a country called Bulgaria.
Bulgaria’s biggest purpose-built seaside resort, Sunny Beach (Slânchev Bryag) is the Black Sea coast’s hyperactive answer to the Spanish costas, and probably the most expensive place in the country. The appeal is clear, though, with several kilometres of sandy beach that attracts more international sun worshippers than any other resort in the country. The beach is one of Bulgaria’s finest, with every imaginable activity from minigolf to parasailing, and restaurants and clubs abound. If you’re just looking to top up your tan by day and go clubbing all night, this is the place to come. You won’t even notice that you’re in a country called Bulgaria.
5. Varna
Bulgaria’s third city and maritime capital, Varna is the most interesting and cosmopolitan town on the Black Sea coast. A combination of port city, naval base and seaside resort, it’s an appealing place to while away a few days, packed with history yet thoroughly modern, with an enormous park to amble round and a lengthy beach to lounge on. In the city centre you’ll find Bulgaria’s largest Roman baths complex and its finest archaeological museum, as well as a lively cultural and restaurant scene. The city also makes an ideal base for day trips to nearby beach resorts such as Sveti Konstantin and Golden Sands (Zlatni Pyasâtsi), and the charming town of Balchik.
6. Burgas
For most visitors, the port city of Burgas is no more than a transit point for the more obviously appealing resorts and historic towns further up and down the coast. If you do decide to stop over, you'll find a lively, well-kept city with a neat, pedestrianised centre, a long, uncrowded beach, a gorgeous seafront park, and some interesting museums. A clutch of reasonably priced hotels, as well as some of the best restaurants in this part of the country, makes it a practical base for exploring the southern coast, too. Nature lovers also come to Burgas for the four lakes just outside the city, which are havens for abundant bird life. You can bird-watch, kayak or take an impromptu plunge into a salt pool.
7. Rila Monastery
Rising out of a forested valley in the Rila Mountains, Bulgaria’s most famous monastery has been a spiritual centre for 1000 years. Rila Monastery’s fortress-like complex engulfs 8800 sq m, and within its stone walls you’ll find remarkably colourful architecture and religious art. Visitors can’t fail to be struck by its elegant colonnades, archways striped in black, red and white, and the bright yellow domes of its main church, beneath which dance apocalyptic frescoes. All of this splendour, against a backdrop of mist-swirled mountains, has made Rila Monastery hugely popular among both pilgrims and curious visitors.
8. Veliko Târnovo
Medieval history emanates from Veliko Târnovo’s fortified walls and cobbled lanes. One of Bulgaria’s oldest towns, Veliko Târnovo has as its centrepiece the magnificent restored Tsarevets Fortress, citadel of the Second Bulgarian Empire. Historic Târnovo is tucked into the dramatic bends of the Yantra River, clasped by an amphitheatre of forested hills. Bulgaria’s 19th-century National Revival splendour is easy to relive along historic lanes such as ul Gurko; similarly evocative is handicraft market Samovodska Charshiya, which retains much the same atmosphere it had two centuries ago. The modern town has burst these tidy seams, splaying west from busy bul Bulgaria. Today’s Târnovo has Bulgaria’s second-largest university and is home to a multicultural expat scene. Its location between Bucharest and Istanbul has made it a backpacker favourite, though it’s worth more than a stopover if you’re to see it from the heights of its fortress down to its tangle of ramshackle lanes.
9. Pirin Mountains
In the Pirin Mountains storms eclipse sunshine in a matter of moments – apt for a region named after ancient Slavic thunder god Perun. This land of giants, with more than 100 peaks surpassing 2000m in height, is greatly admired by hikers. But it’s ski hub Bansko, Bulgaria’s best developed winter-sports resort, that truly draws crowds. From Bansko’s southern edge spreads Pirin National Park (UNESCO-listed in 1983), where 176 lakes glint among 400 sq km of fragrant pine forests and granite peaks. Fang-toothed predators make their home here – bears, wolves and jackals – but hikers are more likely to spot the park’s abundant birdlife: wall-creepers, peregrine falcons and four types of woodpecker number among 170 species seen here.
10. Pamporovo
One of Bulgaria’s four major ski resorts, southerly Pamporovo enjoys plenty of blue skies above its spruce-lined pistes. As is the case with Bansko, the country's premier spot in the Pirin Mountains, the ruthless quest for expansion has left Pamporovo’s forests scarred, and has littered its skyline with cranes and an ever-increasing number of apartment blocks. But unlike Bansko, there’s no historic nucleus, just a resort that sprawls along kilometres of pedestrian-unfriendly roads.
11. Perperikon
With traces of human settlement dating back more than seven millennia and what’s been hailed as the most awesome monolithic structure in the entire Balkan Peninsula crowning its hilltops, Perperikon is a real must for any history buffs and culture vultures making their way through Bulgaria. Before it was built up and fortified by the Thracian tribespeople, it’s thought that Copper Age priests used the hill for rituals and soothsaying, which legend has it foretold the rise of both Alexander the Great and Imperial Rome under Augustus. Today, visitors can come and wander the off-the-beaten-track dig site, while relics and findings are best viewed at the local archaeology museum in Kardzhali.
12. Nesebâr
On a small rocky outcrop 37km northeast of Burgas, connected to the mainland by a narrow, artificial isthmus, pretty-as-a-postcard Nesebâr is famous for its surprisingly numerous, albeit mostly ruined, medieval churches. It has, inevitably, become heavily commercialised, and transforms into one huge, open-air souvenir market during the high season; outside summer, it's a ghost town. Designated by UNESCO as a World Heritage site, Nesebâr has its charms, but in summer these can be overpowered by the crowds and the relentless parade of tacky shops. With Sunny Beach (Slânchev Bryag) just across the bay, meanwhile, you have every conceivable water sport on hand. The 'new town' on the other side of the isthmus has the newest and biggest hotels and the main beach, but the sights are all in the old town.
>>> Hotels in Nesebâr
13. Plovdiv
With an easy grace, Plovdiv mingles invigorating nightlife among millennia-old ruins. Like Rome, Plovdiv straddles seven hills; but as Europe’s oldest continuously inhabited city, it’s far more ancient. It is best loved for its romantic old town, packed with colourful and creaky 19th-century mansions that are now house-museums, galleries and guesthouses. But cobblestoned lanes and National Revival–era nostalgia are only part of the story. Bulgaria’s cosmopolitan second city has always been hot on the heels of Sofia, and a stint as European Capital of Culture 2019 seems sure to give Plovdiv the edge. Music and art festivals draw increasing crowds, while renovations in the Kapana artistic quarter and Tsar Simeon Gardens have given the city new confidence. Once an amiable waystation between Bulgaria and Greece or Turkey, the city has flowered into a destination in its own right – and one that should be firmly stamped on any itinerary through central Bulgaria.
Source: Lonely Planet
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