Things to see in Bulgaria: Plovdiv and the Buzludzha Monument
A recent winter trip to Bulgaria (to attend the Aviation-Event SOF 24 aviation conference) offered the me chance to venture beyond the capital, Sofia, and explore the central part of the country as well.
My itinerary included a morning visit Plovdiv, which is Bulgaria’s second city, as well as a drive to the Shipka area, at the foot of the Balkan Mountain Range that crosses the country from West to East. The latter has quite a few things going for it.
In fact, the main reason for me to drive all the way to Shipka was the possibility of finally visiting the Buzludzha Monument (“Паметник на Бузлуджа”), one of the most eye-catching Communist-era buildings in Eastern Europe. Its truly unique and bizarre architecture is quite a thing, particularly if visited on a foggy, cold day, as it was the case!
But there are other interesting to see and to do around Shipka, starting by the amazing landscapes, and continuing with the beautiful golden-domed Orthodox churches and Ancient Thracian tombs that are found all over part of Bulgaria.
By the way, a note on logistics: Plovdiv and Shipka are not very distant from each other, but it’s at least a good 2-3 hours from either of them to Sofia and another 1.5h drive between Plovdiv and Shipka. So, if you intend to see both I highly recommend an overnight stay in the area.
A morning in Plovidv, what to do and what to see
Located in a plain in Central Bulgaria, Plovdiv is a very old city, one of the oldest in Europe, in fact.
This area was populated by the Thracians, an Ancient people, which gave to History the famous Spartacus, leader of the largest ever slave revolt against Rome (and depicted in several movies and TV series, the best of which possibly Stanley Kubrik’s, shot in 1960 and. with Kirk Douglas playing the main Spartacus role).
With Ancient Trace being located at a major cross-roads of the Ancient World, at the intersection of the routes linking the Balkans, Asia Minor (present day Turkey) and the Greek World, the city that, in due time, would become Plovdiv, saw quite a few comings and goings.
A big part of the heritage you can now find in the city dates back to the Roman period, when the city was known as “Philippopolis” (which evolved until getting to the present name, Plovdiv).
During our short walk through Plovdiv we could see some of those Ancient remains and also some relatively more recent, but also interesting, parts of the old town with buildings that date back to the Bulgarian “Revival Period” of the 19th C. This historical period, which gave origin to a specific type of architecture and aesthetic, is called this way because it is when Bulgarians started to assert their own national and cultural identity under the Ottoman domination.
Worth mentioning that during our Plovdiv excursion our guide was Lubomir Botev, of Traventuria, who provided excellent indications and explanations throughout the trip.
Visiting the Roman mosaics of Plovdiv
One of the archaeological highlights of Plovdiv are the late Roman mosaics at the site of the Ancient Episcopal Basilica of Philippopolis.
These mosaics are now preserved under a roof and there is a relatively new museum building which explains their history, but, unfortunately, it was not always like this. For decades these mosaics were not particularly well kept, particularly during Bulgaria’s chaotic 1990s, and they suffered some damage and even theft.
Fortunately this seems to have been solved now and the mosaics are currently exhibited within a rather impressive setup. As the name implies, the museum is located at the site of the city’s late Roman and Byzantine basilica, which was a major civic and, later, religious building, hence the richness of its decoration.
Most of these mosaics contain references to religious concepts and themes, even if many of them are in the form or rather cute animals and birds. As the excursion’s guide told us, some of them seem designed so that each spectator can more or less come up with its own version or interpretation of what they want to tell us.
As it is common in many ancient sites, the Episcopal Basilica of Plovdiv was modified and transformed several times throughout history and you can see the different layers of mosaics, which in some places are several feet thick.
Overall the current museum makes a great job of telling the story of the place and it is even fitted with some fancy hologram tech that allows you to “interact” with some of the figures that appear depicted in the mosaics. Definitely a must visit in Plovdiv.
A boutique hotel on top of the old Roman baths
Villa Flavia Heritage Boutique Hotel
ul. "Otets Paisiy" 13
4000 Plovdiv, Bulgaria
But the mosaics at the Episcopal Basilica Museum is not the only ancient site you can see from up close in Plovdiv. In fact, most of the Roman and Byzantine city is embedded in the modern town, or rather underneath it.
An example of this is Villa Flavia, a modern boutique hotel which happens to be right on top of Plovdiv’s old Roman baths.
When the site where the hotel now stands was being developed, workers uncovered the remains of the old Roman baths, so the solution was to integrate them into the structure of the hotel, which, in fact has made of this feature a unique sign of identity and differentiation.
When you come into the hotel’s small lobby, the first thing you come across is a round hole on the ground covered with a glass you can walk over. This is a window onto the archaeological layer of the hotel, which can also be visited downstairs.
Walk one floor down and you get to see some of the structures of the old Roman baths, such as the hypocaust, which were the chambers through which hot air was let through it order to heat the bathing area.
The hotel has also a lovely courtyard decorated with Roman-style columns, it’s a pitty that it was such a rainy day! So, now you know, if you are looking for a rather unique and nice place to stay in the historical part of Plovdiv, this is a good option to check!
From Roman ruins to the Bulgarian Revival period
Our walk through central Plovdiv continued, next, towards another highlight of the ancient city: the amphitheatre.
While there are quite a few old Roman amphitheatres out there, this facility was a must for every self-respecting Roman city, the one in Plovdiv has the particularity of being truly enmeshed into the urban fabric. In fact, the Roman amphitheatre of Plovdiv is located right in the middle of one of city’s main commercial streets.
Bulgarian Revival-style Architecture in Plovdiv
But not everything to see in Plovdiv dates back to the Roman times!
A large part of the old town is made of the relatively more recent, but also pretty charming cobbled streets lined with houses dating back to the Bulgarian revival architecture period.
This is a style that became popular in the 19th C. as Bulgarians started to assert their wish of independence from the Ottoman Empire. This is a part of the city that gives a truly Balkan feel to Plovdiv.
Several of these houses, most of which used to belong to prominent trading families of Plovdiv, can be visited. We visited one of them: Hindliyan House.
Built in the 1830s, this blue-painted house was the home and business HQ of Stepan Hindliyan, a Plovdiv merchant of Eastern origins.
The trading community of Plovdiv had many international connections and this shows in the decor and features of the house.
Although the predominant style is local, it contains also several international references and had some features that were considered incredibly advanced at the time, such as a marble bathroom.
This house, which is not huge and can be seen in about half an hour, is very well preserved and it offers an interesting glimpse into the lifestyle of the affluent classes of old Plovdiv.
On the road to the Buzludzha Monument: things to see in Shipka
About 1.5h drive north of Plovdiv you come across the Central Balkan Mountains, which run west to east across a large swath of Bulgaria. Right at the foot of these mountains you find the rather picturesque district of Shipka.
The town of Shipka is at the southern end of one of the main mountain passes connecting the northern part of Bulgaria, that is the part of the country that lies on the north side of the mountain range, to the central and southern plains where Plovdiv is located.
In fact, the drive itself is quite a sightseeing experience, since this is a relatively rural part of the country and goes through some beautiful landscapes.
The road is reasonably good and it is also dotted with some remarkable roadside monuments erected during the Communist times. Some of them look a bit run down nowadays, but they make for a rather awe-inspiring sight, particularly in the Winter light. Quite an appetizer ahead of my visit to the Buzludzhda Monument, which was the primary reason I had come all the way to this part of Bulgaria.
Visiting the Buzludzha Monument
In the outskirts of the town of Shipka is one of the weirdest structures produced by the Communist regimes of Eastern Europe. The Buzludzha Monument was built on top of the peak of the same name at an altitude of around 1,400m. It is a huge concrete, some say UFO-shaped, building that was designed to be a sort of meeting point for high ranking officers of the Bulgarian Communist Party.
The Buzludzha Monument never saw much use, because the Iron Curtain fell in 1989 and the Communist dictatorial regimes of Eastern Regime collapsed with it. So, it soon fell into disrepair and, in fact, it is no longer possible to access the interior, where there are some large mosaics and other decor from that era.
Because of its really unique shape and location, the Buzludzha Monument has since become a sort of iconic archaeological site which draws a constant stream of visitors interested in that period of European history.
In fact, I was even a bit surprised to find several other visitors there, some from places as far as The Netherlands, since the previous day it had been snowing heavily in Sofia, Plovdiv and other parts of Bulgaria and the weather was still unstable enough that I had serious doubts about making the attempt to reach the summit. In fact, aside from the last 200m, which were at the edge of the clouds and in rather icy conditions, the rest of the road turned out to be clean of snow and in good conditions.
The place is truly impressive, even if a bit frightening, particularly in the challenging weather conditions that I came across, but this made the whole place a lot more scenic.
The grand hall indoors can’t be visited, though, so you will need to check online to see how it looks like!
It was necessary to walk with a lot of caution, since some surfaces around the monument were iced over.
So, at the time of my visit (in early December 2024) what you can do is basically walk all around the monument. There is a car park at the foot of the stairs that lead to the monument and from there there is a concrete platform that allows you to walk along the edge of the mountain and make a 360º circle around it.
There is little else to see (although I am sure that there are some urban explorers that have managed to break into it).
The Buzludzha Monument is atop a densely forested mountain area.
The road to access it from the side of Shipka (there is another route coming from the north side of the range) has quite a lot of turns, but it is rather wide and in good condition.
When I set out for the monument I was not sure whether it would be open all the way to the top, due to the winter conditions, but it turned out to be clean of snow.
There are also some buildings (I think one of them is a hotel and a restaurant) quite close to the monument, they seemed to be open, although I didn’t stop to check. Other than that there is no other service infrastructure between the plains and the summit.
How to get to the Buzludzha Monument from Sofia?
I had to do quite a bit of research before deciding to visit the Buzludzha Monument, so here are some of my impressions on the logistics of getting there. I know there are some agencies that offer guided tours to the monument, but I have no experience with those, so I would comment on how to get there on your own.
First of all: can you visit the Buzludzha Monument as a day trip from Sofia? Yes, I did that. BUT be warned that it is a rather long trip if done in one day!
Also, I would forget about going there in public transportation. You would need a car (or taxi) anyway for the last stretch of the road, so it is best to rent a car if you have this option and want to go on your own.
There are basically three ways to get to the Buzludzha Monument by car from Sofia:
From the northern side of the mountain range (route E772 and then via Gabrovo). I can’t comment on this one, since I didn’t do it, but I heard from Bulgarian people with knowledge of the matter that it is better to avoid this option, particularly in Winter, and it is best to get there through the south side.
Taking the A1 motorway (Bulgaria’s main highway) towards Plovdiv and then take the exit northwards towards Route 64 and connecting with E871, and then head east and then north to Shipka. This is probably the fastest and most comfortable way to get to the Buzludzha Monument from Sofia. It is a bit longer in total number of kilometres, but the A1 Highway is well maintained and convenient to drive through. The roads between Plovdiv and Shipka and one lane on each direction, but they run through mostly flat or slightly hilly ground, and are in a decent condition, so it is a relatively nice drive.
From Shipka to the Buzludzha Monument there are two mountain roads. I took the most southerly one, which runs from a spot halfway between Shipka and Kazanlak. It turned out to be a much better road that I expected from the way it looks in the map. It zigzags up the mountain, but it is actually quite wide and in good condition.
Some online reviews point out at potholes, and while there are some, they are very manageable. I also read that there may be snow in Winter and I would certainly expect that in very snowy days, since it goes up to 1,400m and winters in this part of Europe are cold, but when I visited in December it was clean despite the previous days having snowed a bit. In this regard, there’s an app called LIMA, which provides real time updates on the state of Bulgaria’s roads.
Finally, there is another way to reach the Buzludzha Monument from Sofia, also from the south side, and this is taking E871 all the way. I did that on my way back to the capital. The road is ok, but it is a two lane road and it goes through the middle of many villages, so it is rather slow. It is possibly more scenic, since it runs all along the southern edge of the mountain range. It runs mostly through flat ground, but it also traverses a couple of mountain passes, these are not too high (they are not on the main mountain range), but I encountered some snow when driving through in early December. So, unless you like this type of driving, the most straightforward way to do this trip is to stick to the A1 motorway as much as possible.
Exploring the lands of the Ancient Thracians
And from the Communists, to Ancient times, because this part of Bulgaria is one of the richest in terms of archaeological remains from the Thracian civilization.
Around the IV C. BC and until the Roman domination, these lands were ruled by Thracian kings that built their tumulus-type tombs in these plains.
The landscape around Shipka is dotted with these burial mounds that resemble little artificial hills. Many of these have been excavated and researched and today some of them can be visited.
Since I had little time, I opted to visit the one that is known as the “Tomb of Seuthes III”, which is just off the main road next to the entrance to the town of Shipka.
This particular Thracian royal tomb has a little visitors’ center. Entry is free. Since it was quite late in the day and kind of off season, there was no one around at the time of my visit other than a lady, the very welcoming curator of the small museum.
The site can be seen quite quickly because, to be honest, it is rather small, but it is quite interesting to be able to see what’s inside these mounds. The state of preservation of the monumental structures that were found inside of the mound was also pretty remarkable. There is also a small exhibit providing a bit of contextual historical information about the Thracians and the archaeological research that has been conducted at the site.
Quite an interesting, generally underreported, topic and a good starting point for further reading at home!
Visiting the Shipka Memorial Church
Shipka is also a place of religious significance, since it has the Shipka Memorial Church and the adjacent monastery. So, the visit could not be complete without stopping briefly to visit the former.
The Shipka Memorial Church is an Orthodox church which was built at the turn of the 19th C. (it opened in 1902) in the Russian style.
This choice of style is, in fact, not random, since the church commemorates the joint fight of Bulgarians and Russians against the Ottomans in the war of 1877-78, which brought about the independence of Bulgaria.
Shipka, in particular, was the setting of some of the key battles of that war. In fact, no less than four battles (!) were fought for the control of the Shipka Pass, which links the north and south sides of the Balkan Mountains. This was a major strategic location that was successfully defended by a joint Russian-Bulgarian force.
The church is quite beautiful inside. Again, due to how late it was in the day, there seemed to be no one around at the time of my visit.
And, after Shipka, it was a nearly 3 hour drive all the way to Sofia. I couldn’t end this post without a picture of the awe-inspiring landscapes of this part of Bulgaria!
