The Most Beautiful Places in Bulgaria
16 places · updated 13 October 2026
In short: By our ranking, the most beautiful places in Bulgaria are Tsarevets, Boyana Church and Monastery of Saint John of Rila. The list covers 16 places. Last updated 13 October 2026.
Bulgaria's land has been layered by successive civilisations: Thracian kings buried their dead in painted tombs, Rome and Byzantium built forts along the Danube, and two medieval Bulgarian empires raised fortified capitals and monasteries before five centuries of Ottoman rule. The country's mountains — the Balkan range, Rila and the Rhodopes — add glacial lakes, karst caves and wind-carved rocks to that history.
The medieval heritage is the backbone here. Tsarevets, the walled hill above Veliko Tarnovo, was the citadel of the Second Bulgarian Empire, and the Monastery of Saint John of Rila, founded by a 10th-century hermit, became the spiritual centre of the country, its striped arcades rebuilt in the 19th century. The small Boyana Church near Sofia holds frescoes from 1259 that are celebrated for their lifelike faces, and the Madara Rider, a horseman carved high on a cliff in the early Middle Ages, is unique in Europe. Sofia's Alexander Nevsky Cathedral, with its gilded domes, belongs to a much later age of national revival.
Older still are the Thracian tombs of Kazanlak and Sveshtari, the first with painted murals and the second with a frieze of carved female figures. Nature has its own sculptures: Belogradchik Fortress is built into towering red sandstone rocks, Pobiti Kamani near Varna is a field of natural stone columns, and Prohodna Cave's two holes in the roof are known as the Eyes of God. High in Rila, the Seven Rila Lakes step down a glacial valley one above another.
In this list
| # | Place | Type | UNESCO |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Tsarevets | Fortress | |
| 2 | Boyana Church | Church building | ✓ |
| 3 | Monastery of Saint John of Rila | Monastery | ✓ |
| 4 | Belogradchik Fortress | Fortress | |
| 5 | Seven Rila Lakes | Lake | |
| 6 | Alexander Nevsky Cathedral, Sofia | Cathedral | |
| 7 | Madara Rider | Sculpture | ✓ |
| 8 | Thracian Tomb of Kazanlak | Tumulus | ✓ |
| 9 | Thracian Tomb of Sveshtari | Mausoleum | ✓ |
| 10 | Prohodna Cave | Cave | |
| 11 | Pobiti Kamani | Protected area | |
| 12 | Devetashka cave | Show cave | |
| 13 | Buzludzha Monument | Monument | |
| 14 | Rock-hewn Churches of Ivanovo | Church building | ✓ |
| 15 | Marvelous Bridges | Natural arch | |
| 16 | Krushuna Falls | Waterfall |
01 Tsarevets
Царевец
Bulgaria · 0.4 km from Veliko Tarnovo43.083° N 25.653° E
Pudelek (Marcin Szala) · CC BY-SA 3.0 For two centuries the rocky hill of Tsarevets was the beating heart of the Second Bulgarian Empire. Between 1185 and 1393 it served as the chief stronghold of the capital Tarnovo, sheltering both the royal palace and the seat of the Bulgarian patriarch.
Did you know? Restoration of the fortress was completed in 1981 to mark the 1,300th anniversary of the founding of the Bulgarian state.
02 Boyana Church
Боянска църква
Bulgaria · 6 km from Sofia42.645° N 23.266° E
- UNESCO World Heritage
Interact-Bulgaria · CC BY-SA 4.0 Boyana Church is a small, rather modest-looking building of brick and stone in the Boyana quarter on the outskirts of Sofia. Inside it holds one of the most important cycles of medieval painting in Europe, and it has been on the UNESCO World Heritage List since 1979.
Did you know? Fragments of an earlier layer of 11th–12th-century paintings survive beneath the 1259 murals in the apse and on the north wall.
03 Monastery of Saint John of Rila
Рилски манастир „Свети Йоан Рилски“
Bulgaria42.133° N 23.340° E
- UNESCO World Heritage
Image by vladunis from Pixabay This monastery takes its name from Ivan of Rila, a 10th-century hermit who — by one account, in protest at corruption he saw within the church of his time — withdrew into the mountains to live alone.
Did you know? Among the fresco painters were the famous brothers Zahari and Dimitar Zograf, alongside masters from Bansko, Samokov and Razlog.
04 Belogradchik Fortress
Белоградчишка крепост
Bulgaria43.623° N 22.677° E
Yanko Malinov · CC BY-SA 4.0 Belogradchik Fortress is one of those places where nature did half the engineering.
Did you know? The rocks owe their rusty red colour to iron oxide that formed when the region had a hot, dry climate in the Jurassic.
05 Seven Rila Lakes
Седемте рилски езера
Bulgaria42.203° N 23.315° E
Image by videlindj from Pixabay In the northwestern part of the Rila Mountains, seven glacial lakes are stacked one above the other up a single mountain cirque, linked by streams that tumble down in small cascades. Spread between 2,095 and 2,535 metres above sea level, the Seven Rila Lakes are the most visited lake group in Bulgaria.
Did you know? Under older Turkish names the Tear was Bash Göl, the Eye Chanak Göl, the Kidney Kara Göl and the Twin Chifte Göl; the two lowest lakes had none.
06 Alexander Nevsky Cathedral, Sofia
Свети Александър Невски
Bulgaria · 1.9 km from Sofia42.696° N 23.333° E
Image by Michael_Kastelic from Pixabay The Alexander Nevsky Cathedral is Sofia's great gilded landmark and the cathedral church of the Patriarch of Bulgaria.
Did you know? The building measures 73.5 by 52.2 metres, and the roof over the central nave spans 28 metres.
07 Madara Rider
Мадарски конник
Bulgaria · 15.4 km from Shumen43.277° N 27.119° E
- UNESCO World Heritage
Diego Delso · CC BY-SA 4.0 On a sheer cliff face above the village of Madara in north-eastern Bulgaria, a horseman rides to the right, spearing a lion that lies beneath his horse's hooves while a dog runs behind him. The relief is almost life-size and is carved about 23 m above the ground into a near-vertical rock wall roughly 100 m high.
Did you know? Scaffolding was raised to study the carving in 1895, 1905 and 1954, and a plaster cast was taken in 1905.
08 Thracian Tomb of Kazanlak
Bulgaria · 29 km from Stara Zagora42.626° N 25.399° E
- UNESCO World Heritage
Roweromaniak · CC BY-SA 3.0 The Thracian Tomb of Kazanlak is a small brick beehive tomb of the fourth century BC, and its painted dome is among the finest pieces of Hellenistic-era painting to survive anywhere in the Balkans.
Did you know? The same painter's signature was later found in another Thracian tomb at Aleksandrovo, near Haskovo, discovered in the early 2000s.
09 Thracian Tomb of Sveshtari
Bulgaria · 29.9 km from Razgrad43.745° N 26.766° E
- UNESCO World Heritage
Interact-Bulgaria · CC BY-SA 4.0 In 1982 archaeologists opening a mound in the Sboryanovo necropolis of north-eastern Bulgaria found a stone tomb whose central chamber is unlike anything else known from the Thracian world.
Did you know? Traces of dark brown paint still survive on the caryatids' hair, faces and garments, which were originally coloured.
10 Prohodna Cave
Проходна
Bulgaria43.177° N 24.073° E
Image by Tihomir from Pixabay Prohodna is a natural rock tunnel just outside the village of Karlukovo in north-central Bulgaria, in the karst of the Iskar gorge. Its name means "the passage", because the cave runs straight through a limestone ridge with a large entrance at each end.
Did you know? The pale limestone walls hold fossils of bivalves, brachiopods, snails, sea urchins and ammonites, most visible at the western end.
11 Pobiti Kamani
Bulgaria · 15.4 km from Varna43.226° N 27.707° E
Diego Delso · CC BY-SA 4.0 Pobiti Kamani — "the beaten-in stones", often called the Stone Forest — is a field of natural stone columns scattered across the sandy hills west of Varna, in north-eastern Bulgaria.
Did you know? The pillars have no solid foundations; many are hollow and filled with sand, and some stand stacked in tiers up to about 5 metres high.
12 Devetashka cave
Деветашка пещера
Bulgaria · 17.2 km from Lovech43.233° N 24.887° E
Limerad · CC BY-SA 4.0 Devetashka Cave is one of the largest caves in Bulgaria, and its entrance hall is among the most striking cave spaces in the Balkans. It opens on the east bank of the Osam River near the village of Devetaki, northeast of Lovech, with a mouth about 35 metres wide and 30 metres high.
Did you know? The film crew of The Expendables 2 built a real bridge over the Osam River for the shoot and left it to local residents afterwards.
13 Buzludzha Monument
Бузлуджа
Bulgaria · 39.5 km from Stara Zagora42.736° N 25.394° E
Michał Derela · CC BY-SA 4.0 High on the ridge of the Balkan Mountains, above the Shipka Pass, a concrete saucer sits on the summit of Buzludzha like a ship that has landed in the clouds, with a 70-metre pylon standing beside it.
Did you know? The idea of a national monument on the summit was first floated as early as 1898, more than 75 years before construction began.
14 Rock-hewn Churches of Ivanovo
Ивановски скални църкви
Bulgaria · 17.6 km from Ruse43.696° N 25.988° E
- UNESCO World Heritage
Hans A. Rosbach · CC BY-SA 3.0 South of Ruse, the river Rusenski Lom has cut a winding canyon into the limestone plateau, and in its cliffs, some 32 metres above the water, medieval monks hollowed out churches, chapels and cells.
Did you know? The Demolished Church preserves a donor portrait of Tsaritsa Theodora, first wife of Tsar Ivan Alexander, who later became a nun under the name Theophana.
15 Marvelous Bridges
Чудните мостове
Bulgaria · 39.9 km from Plovdiv41.819° N 24.581° E
Камен Ханджиев · CC BY-SA 4.0 The Marvelous Bridges — Chudnite Mostove in Bulgarian — are two huge natural rock arches spanning the valley of the Erkyupriya river high in the Western Rhodopes.
Did you know? The bridges were declared a protected natural landmark on 18 July 1949, and the protected area covers about 39 hectares.
16 Krushuna Falls
Крушунски водопад
Bulgaria · 28.1 km from Lovech43.243° N 25.033° E
Image by 12019 from Pixabay At Krushuna, in the rolling hills of central northern Bulgaria, a small river does not just fall over rock but builds the rock it falls over.
Did you know? The Devetaki Plateau around the falls holds more than 30 known caves, among them Urushka Maara and Boninska Cave.
How this list is ranked
Places are chosen for how they look, not for how famous they are: each one has its own description and a photograph credited to its author. The order is a single world ranking that weighs the beauty of the place in curated photography together with how widely it is documented — the number of language editions of its encyclopedia article and how often that article is read in a year. The list is rebuilt as places are added, so the order and the counts on this page are always current.
Questions people ask
- What are the most beautiful places in Bulgaria?
- On our list, Tsarevets ranks first, followed by Boyana Church and Monastery of Saint John of Rila.
- What is the Madara Rider?
- An early medieval relief carved into a sheer cliff near Shumen, showing a horseman spearing a lion, followed by a dog. It is the only rock relief of its kind in Europe and was inscribed by UNESCO in 1979.
- What are the Eyes of God in Prohodna Cave?
- Two large, eye-shaped holes in the ceiling of Prohodna, a natural tunnel cave near Lovech. When light falls through them they look like a pair of eyes gazing down into the cave.
- Who founded the Rila Monastery?
- It grew around the hermitage of Saint John of Rila, who lived in the mountains in the 10th century. The present buildings mostly date from the 19th century, after a fire destroyed the older complex.
- What kinds of places are there to see in Bulgaria?
- In our collection, the places in Bulgaria are most often churches (4), rock formations (2), caves (2) and forts (2).
- How many places are on this list in Bulgaria?
- The list covers 16 places.