Idyllic Koprivshtitsa

The whole town is the highlight! There isn't a huge amount to do here - no frantic rounds of churches and palaces - but it's an amazing place to wander around, and absorb the atmosphere.

Quick Tips:

Come for a couple of days in between more hectic sightseeing in the region - it's a great break from Sofia.

Best Way To Get Around:

There's no need or point in having a car here. The town is very compact, and you can walk from one end to the other in 10 minutes. I advise getting here by bus from Sofia, and then relying on Shanks' pony.

We stayed in private rooms, arranged through a woman we met at the railway station. She rented us a flat in the upstairs of her own home, in the centre of the village. The flat had 2 bedrooms, a living room and a balcony, for $5 a night between the three of us. The living room had a good view of the village, and the house was set among trees, near the river. This was by far the best and by far the cheapest place we stayed in the whole country! The flat was newly decorated, smelt faintly of pine wood and varnish, and was an altogether lovely place to stay.

We met people who were staying at a variety of the village's hotels, and they were all paying a lot more money for much worse accommodation. Private rooms are a great idea - you can make yourself a cup of tea, or dinner if you don't feel like eating out, and save yourself money as well! A bargain that is hard to beat. From what I can gather, it is common for people offering private rooms to wait at train stations nearby and offer accommodation. If this doesn't happen to you, visit the tourist information bureau in the village, as they have a list of people offering rooms in their houses.

No English menu at this place, which led to trouble. With the help of a phrase book, I cautiously selected a tomato salad, on the grounds that this couldn't go far wrong. My friend, more daring, pointed randomly at a fairly inexpensive item on the menu and ended up eating chopped and fried chicken livers, without potatoes or vegetables of any kind! Bulgarians seems to eat and enjoy a lot of offal, so, if this isn't your idea of a culinary delight, stick to places with an English menu, or safe dishes you can translate accurately.

This is allegedly a cheap place, but the waiter will do his best to argue! The rip-off here was something special, we thought. The food was OK, but nothing to write home about. We had ordered cheap-ish dishes, but the waiter tried to charge us for the three most expensive. After a long, passionate argument in Russian (which two of us spoke, and lots of people speak in Bulgaria) we got the prices down to something a bit closer to reality. I wouldn't go here unless you speak good Bulgarian/Russian, and relish a good fight.

This place was listed in our guidebook as more expensive than other restaurants, but we found it one of the cheapest in town! They take the menu prices as an absolute, rather than a starting point, and the food is good, too. Again, however, they had no menu in English. Sticking to the safe option, following an offal problem the night before, we all ate chicken and salad - here, as in much of Eastern Europe, you can find at almost any restaurant a dish called Shopski Salad. It's chopped tomato, cucumber, and cheese, and it's very good. It is also often the only fresh salad or vegetables on the menu, as Bulgarians love pickled vegetables better than fresh.

This house is a restored merchant's house, built in the mid 19th century. It is large, well decorated, and very interesting. The furniture is original, and much of it is locally produced, or from the Austro-Hungarian empire style. The dining room is particularly lavish, and it appears that 19th century merchants did a lot of business over dinner! The ceilings are high, and many are richly and beautifully decorated. The whole house is elegant, and would make any visitor feel jealous when he compares it to his own property.

This was the second school in the whole country to begin teaching children in the Bulgarian language. This might seem like an unimportant linguistic point, but just consider the recent fuss in California, or Tower Hamlets in London about the language children are taught, and you will further understand the political implications such decisions can have. In Bulgaria, the Turkish Empire had been trying to assimilate the local languages and customs, in order to strength the empire. Koprivshtitsa is proud of its important role in the fight for independence, both in linguistic and armed struggle terms, because the first major uprising against the occupiers began here in the 1870s.

As the village is located in the Sredna Gora mountains, it would make a great hiking and walking base. Unfortunately, there is nothing to help you set out. There are no walking trails; the tourist office sells no maps, and it's very easy to get lost in this neck of the woods.

We were very keen to leave civilization for a day and have a good walk, so we mentioned the idea to a student we'd met in a cafe in the village. He spoke good Russian (no English) and agreed to take us for a 6 hour walk the next day for a very small amount of cash. The walk was great - fairly demanding, but really enjoyable. If you can set up such an informal arrangement, go for it; you won't regret it. The same lack of facilities that makes it hard to hike in the first place, makes it great if you can get out there.