Once the homes of early humans, caves have always tickled the imagination. Their darkness, echoing caverns, hidden rivers, screeching bats and bizarre rock formations have become the setting of countless legends, stories and discoveries about times past. Bulgaria is no exception. This country's caves might not be the biggest or the most spectacular in the world, but many are very impressive and well worth a visit.
If you do not count (pun intended) the odd-number of lean dishes that Bulgarians gorge on Christmas Eve, you will be hard-pressed to distinguish their way of celebrating the Nativity from the rest of the globalised world. Easter is a different story, and it is not only because the dates of Eastern and Western Christians rarely overlap.
The Aleksandr Nevskiy cathedral and the Yellow Brick Road, the Largo and NDK: tourists in Sofia tend to gravitate around these focal points of interest. The more adventurous explore the multiethnic bustle around the Women's Market, and everyone is into discovering Sofia's restaurants and nightlife.
A former hotel, abandoned in the mountains and kept off limits by a group of mysterious guards. A former foreign minister stumbling upon the road that leads to it, and gets arrested. Rumours of something sinister hidden deep beneath it.
No, this is not the elevator pitch for a TV series based on the mysterious deaths of six people connected to a hut in Petrohan. This is the story of Object 17, which the hacks sometimes dub "Bulgaria's Area 51."
From the splendid images in the Bishop's Basilica in Plovdiv to the black-and-white portraits in Villa Armira, Bulgaria is proud of its ancient mosaics, which are mostly Roman. However, while a growing number of tourists discover these centuries-old gems, a universe of newer mosaics is slowly crumbling and going to seed before our eyes.
Steep rocky peaks, pristine alpine meadows, hidden lakes and some of the last communities that herd semi-wild, traditional breeds of sheep and horses: the Pirin is a small mountain that is one big wonder of nature. However, the sublime beauty of the mountain, whose highest parts have been a UNESCO-listed national park for over four decades, is not for those who would rather eschew hiking or stick to skiing in Bansko.
One doesn't expect to find waterfalls in the middle of the hilly Danube valley, and yet there they are – hidden amid karst crevices and familiar only to a handful of people, they turn up as a surprise.
The waterfall in the village of Hotnitsa is one of these serendipitous sights. In fact, it is one of the two reasons for the relative fame of this village in the Veliko Tarnovo region. The other is the colony of expats, mostly from the UK. According to most recent data, they own about a hundred of the 500 houses in the village.
The mastodons roamed along the banks of a river, munching on the vegetation under the canopy of a tropical forest, oblivious to the screams of monkeys and the presence of rhinos, but watching out for lions and sabre-toothed tigers that were never far from the watering hole.
The river attracted all of these animals but, from time to time, a visit here could prove fatal. As the water swept away the remains of the dead bodies, they eventually started to pile up at one of the bends of the river. There the bones accumulated, along with other debris, and over time they fossilised.
If one of your New Year's resolutions is to travel more around Bulgaria in 2026, you have probably already encountered a problem: how to plan your trips so that you get the most out of this country's impressive nature, history and heritage. If you need inspiration, information or advice, the following pages offer a list of ideas for escapes and activities from January to December.
January: Bansko
Glass, one of the most amazing materials that humanity has discovered and mastered, starts with some inconspicuous sand. When heated to the right temperature and with the proper additives, it turns into a mesmerising molten lava that can take any type of shape – from window panes to vases to decorations.