Veliko Tarnovo Travel Video Guide

Veliko Tarnovo Travel Itinerary

• Maps and flag of Bulgaria
• Veliko Tarnovo travel photos
• Veliko Tarnovo travel forum
• Flights to Veliko Tarnovo
• Hotels in Veliko Tarnovo
• Hostels in Veliko Tarnovo
• Buy the guide book!

The precipitously perched houses of VELIKO TARNOVO seem poised to leap into the chasms that divide the city into its separate quarters. Medieval fortifications girdling the Tsarevets massif add melodrama to the scene, yet even more transfixing are the huddles of antique houses that the writer Ivan Vazov likened to frightened sheep, bound to the rocks by wild lilac and vines, forming picturesque reefs veined by steps and narrow streets. Le Corbusier raved about Tarnovo's "organic" architecture, and even the dour Prussian Field Marshal Helmut Von Moltke was moved to remark that he had "never seen a town of more romantic location".

But for Bulgarians the city has a deeper significance. When the National Assembly met here to draft Bulgaria's first constitution in 1879, it consciously did so in the former capital of the Second Kingdom (1185-1396) whose medieval civilization was snuffed out by the Turks. Reclaiming this heritage was an integral part of the National Revival, and since independence (especially during the socialist era) archeologists have been keenly uncovering the past of Tarnovo "the Great" - not only the medieval citadel of Tsarevets but also the churches of Sveta Gora and Trapezitsa . Nor is the city an isolated case, for in the hills and valleys around

Tarnovo are several monasteries and small towns founded during the Second Kingdom or in the aftermath of its collapse, which make great excursions from town.

Tarnovo's convenience as a touring base is backed up by the city's train and bus links with towns like Dryanovo, Tryavna and Gabrovo to the south - all easy day-trips from here. In addition, the Bucharest-Istanbul express train travels through once a day in each direction, useful if you're travelling further afield.

Your Tips For Veliko Tarnovo

• Black Sea Coast Bulgaria Travel Videos
  Bulgaria Travel Itinerary
  The Bulgarian Black Sea coast has quietened down a bit since its heyday in the 1970s and 1980s, when it served as the playground for the entire Eastern bloc, but it is still a magnet for hundreds of thousands of Bulgarians and foreign visitors. - Bulgaria
  

• Kazanlak Bulgaria Travel Videos
  Bulgaria Travel Itinerary
  Forty kilometres beyond Kalofer, KAZANLAK is the capital of the rose-growing region, although you wouldn't necessarily realize that unless you pass through town during the first weekend of June, when the long-standing but fairly lacklustre Festival of Roses ( Praznik na Rozata ) takes place. - Bulgaria
  

• Plovdiv Bulgaria Travel Videos
  Bulgaria Travel Itinerary
  Lucian the Greek called PLOVDIV "the biggest and most beautiful of all towns" in Thrace; he might have added "and Bulgaria", for the country's second-largest city (with a population of 360,000) is one of its most attractive and vibrant centres, with arguably more to recommend it than Sofia, which the proud locals tend to regard with some disdain. - Bulgaria
  

• Sredna Gora Bulgaria Travel Videos
  Bulgaria Travel Itinerary
  ? So, proudly you may gaze Unto the Sredna Gora, the forest's single queen, And hear the ring of swords, and all this song can mean ? - Pencho Slaveykov, The Song of the Blood The Sredna Gora or "Central Highlands" stretch from the Pancharevo defile outside Sofia almost as far as Yambol on the Thracian plain. - Bulgaria
  

• Shipka Pass Bulgaria Travel Videos
  Bulgaria Travel Itinerary
  For drama and majestic vistas, few routes in Bulgaria match crossing the SHIPKA PASS . - Bulgaria
  

• Balkan Range Bulgaria Travel Videos
  Bulgaria Travel Itinerary
  The Balkan Range cuts right across the country, a forbidding swathe of rock known to the Bulgarians as the Stara planina - the "Old Mountains". - Bulgaria
  

• Rhodopes Bulgaria Travel Videos
  Bulgaria Travel Itinerary
  According to Thracian mythology, the mortal lovers Hem and Rhodopis dared call themselves after the divine Zeus and Hera, who duly punished the couple by turning them into mountains separated by the River Maritsa - him the Balkans and she the Rhodopes . - Bulgaria
  

• Sofia Bulgaria Travel Videos
  Bulgaria Travel Itinerary
  According to its motto, SOFIA "grows but does not age" ( raste no ne staree ): a tribute to the mushrooming suburbs occupied by one-tenth of Bulgaria's population, and a cryptic reference to its ancient origins. - Bulgaria
  

• Stara Zagora Bulgaria Travel Videos
  Bulgaria Travel Itinerary
  STARA ZAGORA means "Old Town Behind the Mountain", an apt name for this settlement on the far flanks of the eastern Sredna Gora, with a history of occupation stretching back some 7000 years. - Bulgaria
  

• Southwest Bulgaria Travel Videos
  Bulgaria Travel Itinerary
  The landscape of Bulgaria south of the capital is dominated by the River Struma, which rises on the southern slopes of Mt Vitosha before sweeping west then south through a series of arid gorges and fertile flood plains. - Bulgaria