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The best thing to do in Veliko Tarnovo is walk up Tsarevets, because the hill was the seat of the Second Bulgarian Empire from 1185 to 1393 and it still holds the royal palace foundations, 18 churches and the patriarchal cathedral inside its walls. Everything else in the town is within twenty minutes of it: a second fortress hill with a lift, a church where Bulgaria declared its independence, a craft street of Revival workshops, and a village of painted 17th-century churches 4 km up the road.
One to two days covers the town, three with Arbanasi and the hills. Bulgaria adopted the euro on 1 January 2026 and the lev stopped being legal tender on 1 February, so every price below is in euro and there is no longer any money to change.
The 17 best things to do in Veliko Tarnovo
The 17 attractions worth your time in Veliko Tarnovo are listed below, starting with the ones that justify the trip. Prices move, and several of these sites are free, so the ones that charge are marked.
1. Tsarevets Fortress
Tsarevets Fortress is the citadel of medieval Tarnovgrad and the reason this town exists on any itinerary. The fortress covers the whole of Tsarevets hill inside a bend of the Yantra, and it was the seat of the Second Bulgarian Empire from 1185 until the Ottomans took it on 17 July 1393. Excavation has found the foundations of the royal palace, more than 400 houses, 18 churches, three gates and Baldwin’s Tower, named for the Latin emperor held prisoner after Kaloyan defeated him in 1205. Allow two hours for the walk up and round, and wear something you can climb in. Adults pay roughly €5 ($5.50, £4.30). A sound-and-light show runs on the fortress on some evenings and is booked separately, so check the schedule rather than turning up.
2. Patriarchal Cathedral of the Holy Ascension
The Patriarchal Cathedral stands on the summit of Tsarevets and its interior is not what anyone expects. The original church was the seat of the Bulgarian Patriarchate at the height of the Second Empire and was destroyed with the rest of the fortress; what stands now is a reconstruction completed in the early 1980s. Inside, instead of conventional icons, the walls carry stark modernist murals of Bulgarian history painted by Teofan Sokerov, which caused an argument at the time and are now the most memorable thing on the hill. Entry is included in the Tsarevets ticket and the climb to it is the last and steepest part of the walk.
3. Church of the Holy Forty Martyrs
The Church of the Holy Forty Martyrs is where Bulgaria declared its independence, and it is the most historically loaded building in the country. Ivan Asen II had it built in 1230 in the Asenov quarter below Tsarevets to mark his victory at Klokotnitsa over the Despotate of Epirus, and he had three ancient inscribed columns installed inside it as a tribute to his predecessors: Omurtag’s Column, Asen’s Column and the border column of Khan Krum from Rodosto. The church served as the royal pantheon, and a 1972 excavation uncovered a burial with a gold ring naming Kaloyan. On 22 September 1908 Tsar Ferdinand proclaimed full independence from the Ottoman Empire here. It was a mosque for part of the Ottoman period, its paintings destroyed in 1853, and it reopened after restoration on 14 September 2006.
4. Samovodska Charshiya
Samovodska Charshiya is the 19th-century craft market street, and the workshops in it still work. The market grew up in the 1860s where villagers from Samovodene came to sell, and the restored buildings along it now hold a potter, a coppersmith, a knife maker, a bakery, icon painters and several galleries, alongside the Hadji Nikoli Inn and the Emilian Stanev house museum. Walking it costs nothing and the individual museums charge separately. It runs into Rakovski Street and is the natural route between the town centre and Gurko Street.
5. Gurko Street
Gurko Street is the row of Revival houses stacked above the Yantra that appears on every photograph of Veliko Tarnovo. The street runs along a steep terrace below the main road, named after General Iosif Gurko, whose forces reached the town on 7 July 1877, and the houses along it are built one against the next with wooden balconies overhanging the drop to the river. The Sarafkina House, a merchant’s home of 1861 that is five storeys on the river side and two on the street side, is open as a museum of 19th-century town life. The street is free to walk and the cobbles are uneven.
6. Arbanasi Village
Arbanasi is a village of stone-walled merchant houses and painted churches 4 km (2.5 mi) up the hill, and it is the best half-day out of the town. The houses were built like small fortresses, blank stone walls to the lane with the living quarters hidden behind, because the village grew rich on trade and had to defend itself. The Church of the Nativity looks like a barn from outside and is covered inside with 17th-century frescoes across every surface, which is the single most striking interior in the area. The Konstantsalieva House is open as a museum. Walking the village is free, the church and the house charge, and a taxi up takes about ten minutes.
7. Asenevtsi Monument
The Asenevtsi Monument is the sword-shaped pillar in the river bend, and it marks 800 years since the Asen brothers’ uprising. The monument was made by the sculptor Krum Damyanov with the architects Petar Barakov and Atanas Agura between 1981 and 1985, to mark the anniversary of the 1185 revolt that founded the Second Bulgarian Empire. Four Asen rulers ride around the base of a 17 m concrete pillar cut like a sword blade driven into the ground, with bronze lions at its foot. It stands on the flat ground by the Yantra near the Boris Denev art gallery and the Stambolov Bridge, and the full view of it is from Gurko Street above. Free, and lit at night.
8. Trapezitsa Fortress
Trapezitsa is the second fortress hill, and it has a lift to save you the climb. The hill rises about 81 m above the Yantra opposite Tsarevets and held the boyars’ houses and the churches of medieval Tarnovgrad; archaeologists have uncovered the foundations of 17 of them, decorated with pilasters, blind arches and coloured ceramic plates. The relics of Saint Ivan Rilski were moved here from 1195. A lift runs up from the Asenov quarter, normally daily except Mondays between May and October and not in high wind or heavy rain, so confirm it is running before you walk over.
9. Museum of the Bulgarian Revival and Constituent Assembly
The Constituent Assembly museum is where the first Bulgarian constitution was written, and the assembly hall upstairs is kept as it was. Bulgaria’s Constituent Assembly met in this building in 1879 and produced the Tarnovo Constitution, which is why Veliko Tarnovo rather than Sofia is where the modern Bulgarian state is considered to have begun. The lower floors cover the National Revival in the town: the crafts, the schools, the church struggle and the run-up to liberation, with a collection of Christian art produced under Ottoman rule. It stands on Ivan Vazov Street in the centre and charges a modest admission.
10. Hadji Nikoli Inn
The Hadji Nikoli Inn is the last of the 19th-century caravan inns of Veliko Tarnovo, and it is a museum, a gallery and a restaurant at once. The inn was built in 1858 by Kolyu Ficheto, the National Revival master builder responsible for much of the town, on two galleried storeys around a courtyard, and it is the only one of the town’s many inns to survive. The museum floors show the innkeeper’s office, guest rooms, a kitchen and a hamam; the gallery hangs contemporary Bulgarian painting; and the restaurant downstairs is one of the better meals in the old town. It is at 19 Rakovski Street, and admission to the museum is a couple of euro.
11. Stambolov Bridge
The Stambolov Bridge is the high pedestrian bridge over the Yantra and the best short walk in the town. The bridge opened in 1900 after a construction involving Belgian, Italian and Bulgarian engineers, runs about 28 m (92 ft) across the gorge and carries only people. In 1932 the pilot Petko Popganchev flew a light aircraft under it, which the town has not forgotten. It looks straight up at Trapezitsa on one side and the terraced houses on the other, and it costs nothing.
12. Bishop’s Bridge
The Bishop’s Bridge is the single stone arch below the old town, and it is the work of Kolyu Ficheto. Vladishki Most was built in the 1850s to replace an earlier wooden crossing on the road the bishops used, which is where the name comes from, and it is one of the few Ficheto bridges still standing after the Yantra took several others. It carries a footpath across the river below the Asenov quarter and gives the view up at the old houses that most people photograph from the road above. Free, and reachable on foot from Samovodska Charshiya in about fifteen minutes.
13. Tsarevgrad Tarnov
Tsarevgrad Tarnov is a wax museum of the Second Bulgarian Empire, and it works better than that sounds. The multimedia centre holds 29 wax figures across two floors by the sculptor Boris Borisov, arranged in scenes: Kaloyan’s defeat of the Latin emperor Baldwin I in 1205, Ivan Asen II with his wife Irina, and Kaloyan and Desislava of Boyana Church. Touchscreen guides run in Bulgarian and English. It is at 6 Nikola Pikolo Street below Tsarevets, closed on Mondays, and tickets are about €3.70 ($4, £3.20).
14. Mini Bulgaria Park
Mini Bulgaria Park puts 70 of the country’s landmarks at 1:25 scale in one field, and it is the most efficient hour in town with children. The park opened in September 2017 at the foot of Tsarevets hill and its models include the Alexander Nevsky Cathedral, the Shipka Memorial Church, the Rock-Hewn Churches of Ivanovo and the Roman fortress of Sexaginta Prista, with information boards in Bulgarian, English and Russian. There is a play area and a souvenir shop. Tickets are about €3.70 ($4, £3.20) and under-6s go free.
15. Museum of Illusions
The Museum of Illusions is the rainy-afternoon option, with more than 70 hands-on exhibits. The museum is at 6 General Gurko Street in the old town and runs the standard set well: an inverted room, a rotating tunnel, a room with a sloping floor, a clone machine, holograms and a rack of puzzles, with the science behind each one explained. Everything is meant to be touched and photographed. It closes on Tuesdays and tickets cost about €6.15 ($6.70, £5.30).
16. Sveta Gora
Sveta Gora is the wooded hill above the town, and the terrace at the top gives the view of Tsarevets that the postcards use. The park covers the third of the town’s three hills, alongside Tsarevets and Trapezitsa, with several kilometres of paths under old trees, benches, a fitness area, a skatepark and playgrounds, and the university campus on its flank. It sits about 1.5 km (0.9 mi) from the centre and several city bus lines stop at the entrance. Entry is free and it is open all year.
17. Kartala Waterfall
Kartala Waterfall is the short hike out of town, with a drop of about 8 m (26 ft) down a rock face. The falls sit on the eco-trail between the northern edge of Veliko Tarnovo and the Transfiguration Monastery, below Kartala peak, and the marked route has wooden steps and bridges where the ground gets steep. Carrying on along the trail reaches the monastery and the Kartala lookout, which makes a round trip of 2 to 3 hours from the Kartala or Varusha neighbourhoods. There is nothing to pay and the water is at its best in spring.
Where to stay in Veliko Tarnovo
Stay in the old town between Stefan Stambolov Street and Gurko Street, because the fortress, the craft street, the bridges and the restaurants are all within a ten-minute walk of it and nothing else in the town is. The Varosha quarter above it is quieter and still central. Sveta Gora, on the hill, trades the walk for the view. Arbanasi, 4 km (2.5 mi) up, is the option for a car and a quiet night, with several converted merchant houses taking guests. Rooms with a Tsarevets view cost noticeably more than rooms without one, and the town fills during the July folklore festival, so compare hotels and guesthouses in Veliko Tarnovo on Booking.com before fixing a date, because the fortress-facing rooms go first.
Where to eat in Veliko Tarnovo
Eat on the terraces facing Tsarevets, because that view is the point of eating out in this town. The 3 restaurants below were all open and trading at the time of writing.
- Shtastliveca, 79 Stefan Stambolov Street. Open since 1997, a long Bulgarian and international menu, and a terrace looking straight across the gorge.
- Ivan Asen, Ivan Asen Square 2, by the exit from Tsarevets. Bulgarian cooking, replica medieval inscriptions on the columns inside, and the closest table to the fortress gate.
- Ethno, Nezavisimost 3. Mediterranean and Greek dishes plus a sushi menu, in the centre with a view down to the Yantra.
The 6 dishes to order are listed below, and all of them appear on ordinary menus here.
- Banitsa. Filo pastry layered with sirene and egg, bought hot from a bakery before 10am.
- Shopska salata. Tomato, cucumber, pepper and onion under grated sirene; order it first.
- Kebapche. A grilled roll of minced pork and veal seasoned with cumin, ordered by the piece.
- Musaka. Minced pork or beef baked with potato under a custard topping, not the Greek version with aubergine.
- Kiselo mlyako. Bulgarian yoghurt from cow, sheep or goat milk, eaten plain or drunk salted as ayran.
- Kavarma. Meat and vegetables cooked slowly in a sealed clay pot, best in cold weather with a local red.
More on the wider cuisine sits in our guide to the best Bulgarian foods.
Tours and day trips from Veliko Tarnovo
Book a guided trip when the connection is the obstacle, which it is for almost everything outside Arbanasi. The Transfiguration Monastery, Nikopolis ad Istrum, the Etar open-air museum at Gabrovo, Shipka Pass and the Rock-Hewn Churches of Ivanovo are all within about 90 minutes by road and awkward or impossible by bus. Current options and prices are below.
Under your own steam, a small car covers all of those in two days, and rates in Bulgaria are among the lowest in the EU; it is worth running the dates through DiscoverCars to compare the local and international fleets rather than taking whatever is at the counter.
Getting to and around Veliko Tarnovo
Come to Veliko Tarnovo by bus from Sofia, because the coach takes about 3 hours 15 minutes against 4 to 5 hours on the train for the same 220 km (136.7 mi). Union Ivkoni, Grup Plus and Biomet all run the route into the town’s main bus station. Gorna Oryahovitsa, the airport 10 km (6.2 mi) away, has no scheduled passenger flights and handles cargo, so ignore it when planning: Sofia is the airport, and its railway station and coach station are next door to each other. Book intercity trains and coaches through Omio, which sells Bulgarian rail and bus tickets in English, since the operators’ own sites are hard work from abroad. Once you arrive, the old town is walkable end to end and steeply so; city buses reach Sveta Gora and the Asenov quarter, and a taxi to Arbanasi takes about ten minutes. For the wider country, see our guides to Bulgaria, the capital Sofia and the most interesting facts about Bulgaria.
Veliko Tarnovo practicalities
Veliko Tarnovo is easy for an English-speaking visitor, and the currency is the thing that changed recently. The details you actually need are listed below.
- Currency. The euro, since 1 January 2026. Bulgaria was the 21st country to join the euro area, the lev circulated alongside it through January at the fixed rate of 1.95583 and stopped being legal tender on 1 February 2026, and mandatory dual pricing ended on 30 June 2026. There is no reason to look for an exchange office.
- Language. Bulgarian, written in Cyrillic. The town has two universities and a long history of teaching Bulgarian to foreigners, so English is widely spoken in the centre and guided tours run in several languages.
- Time. Eastern European Time, UTC+2 in winter and UTC+3 from the last Sunday in March to the last Sunday in October.
- Plugs. Type C and Type F, 230V at 50Hz. Continental European devices work as they are; American and British ones need an adapter.
- Borders. Bulgaria has been in the EU since 2007 and a full Schengen member since 1 January 2025, so there are no routine passport checks arriving from another Schengen country.
- Safety. Veliko Tarnovo is a small, quiet university town with a low crime rate. The genuine hazard is the terrain: the cobbles are steep and slippery in rain and the drops beside Gurko Street are real.
- How long to stay. One day for the fortress and the old town, two with Arbanasi and Trapezitsa, three if you want the monasteries and the hills.
Veliko Tarnovo FAQ
How many days do you need in Veliko Tarnovo?
Two days is right for Veliko Tarnovo. Day one takes Tsarevets, the Patriarchal Cathedral, the Church of the Holy Forty Martyrs and Samovodska Charshiya; day two takes Trapezitsa, Gurko Street, the bridges and Arbanasi in the afternoon. One day is enough for the fortress and the craft street if you are passing through, which many people are, since the town sits roughly halfway between Sofia and Varna.
Is Veliko Tarnovo worth visiting?
Yes, Veliko Tarnovo is the strongest medieval site in Bulgaria and one of the best places to visit in Bulgaria. It was the capital of the Second Bulgarian Empire for over two centuries, it is built on three hills around a river gorge so the town itself is the view, and it holds the church where Bulgarian independence was proclaimed in 1908 and the hall where the first constitution was written in 1879. It is also cheap, walkable and small enough to see properly in two days.
What was Veliko Tarnovo the capital of?
Veliko Tarnovo was the capital of the Second Bulgarian Empire, from 1185 to 1393. It was not the capital of the First Bulgarian Empire, which ran its affairs from Pliska and then Veliki Preslav in the north-east, a confusion that appears in a lot of English writing about the town. Tarnovgrad, as it then was, fell to the Ottomans on 17 July 1393 after a three-month siege.
How many people live in Veliko Tarnovo?
Veliko Tarnovo had about 59,000 residents in 2024, which makes it the fifteenth largest city in Bulgaria. Figures of 68,000 and 227,000 both circulate: the first is a municipality count from an earlier census and the second is the province. The town feels smaller than any of those numbers because almost everything a visitor wants is in one square kilometre.
WonderfulWanderings Pro Tips
The 5 tips below come from rechecking Veliko Tarnovo’s sites, dates and transport after Bulgaria’s changeover to the euro, and each one contradicts something still printed in other guides to the town.
- Do not plan a flight into Gorna Oryahovitsa. The airport is 10 km (6.2 mi) from Veliko Tarnovo and handles cargo; the last scheduled passenger service ended years ago and the concessionaire said in November 2025 that it hopes to take passengers again within about eighteen months. Guides that call it “the nearest airport serving Veliko Tarnovo” are technically right and practically useless. Fly to Sofia and take the coach.
- Take the bus from Sofia, not the train. The coach does the run in about 3 hours 15 minutes and the train takes 4 to 5, because the rail route goes round by Gorna Oryahovitsa. This is the opposite of the Sofia to Plovdiv choice, where the train wins easily.
- Bring euros and skip the exchange office. Bulgaria joined the euro area on 1 January 2026 and the lev stopped being legal tender on 1 February 2026. Any advice to “exchange currency at banks or exchange offices for the best rates” in Veliko Tarnovo was written before the changeover.
- Check the Trapezitsa lift before you walk to it. It normally runs daily except Mondays from May to October and stops in high wind and heavy rain, and the alternative is a steep climb from the Asenov quarter. The 17 excavated church foundations at the top are worth it either way.
- The murals in the Patriarchal Cathedral are modern, and that is the point. The church on Tsarevets was rebuilt in the early 1980s and painted by Teofan Sokerov in a stark contemporary style rather than with icons. Visitors expecting medieval frescoes are regularly thrown by it; go in knowing and it becomes the most interesting room on the hill.
About the author. This guide is written and maintained by the Wonderful Wanderings editorial team. Wonderful Wanderings was founded in 2012 by Sofie Couwenbergh, and the team covers Bulgaria for independent travellers, including the fortresses and churches of the old capital, the day trips to Arbanasi and the monasteries that are worth a guide or a car, and the guesthouses with a view of Tsarevets. Prices and opening arrangements are rechecked when they move, and this page was updated after Bulgaria’s changeover to the euro.
