Just under three hours east of Sofia, this picturesque town of around 10,000 residents provides visitors with a rare opportunity to immerse themselves in Bulgaria's rich cultural history. Its historic houses and cobblestone streets harken back to Bulgaria's National Revival period (1762-1878); traditional handcrafts flourish here, too, and its vibrant culinary landscape is replete with taverns serving up banitsa cheese pastry and kavarma pork-and-vegetable stew are unforgettable experiences!

A visit here is like exploring a living museum, with much of its original architecture from the National Revival era still standing and featuring over 140 cultural monuments, museums, and exhibits - not forgetting being home to legendary late-19th-century writer Pencho Slaveykov and Angel Kanchev, a mid-19th-century revolutionay against the Ottoman Turkish rule of the time. 

Daskalov's House, built in 1808, stands out with its eye-catching wooden-carved sun on the roof, the result of a bet between two master builders to see who could create an eye-catching wood decoration on their ceilings; today it´s a museum dedicated to woodcarving. Also nearby is Bacho Kiro Cave, which was one of Europe's first landscaped caves, opened in 1890 and admitting tourists beginning in 1938. 

Read more in Tripatini contributor Neha Jangid´s post 4 Hidden Gems of Bulgaria.