Sofia Airport → Stara Zagora

Stara Zagora is known across Bulgaria as the 'city of the lime trees' for its unusually wide, tree-lined boulevards, laid out on a precise grid after the city was rebuilt following a fire in 1878 — a rare piece of deliberate 19th-century urban planning that still makes it feel calmer and more orderly than most Bulgarian cities. Shaded parks, fountains and open squares run through the centre rather than around its edges.

The city's roots go back much further, though: the Neolithic Dwellings Museum protects one of the best-preserved Stone Age settlements in Europe, found right in the modern city, while the ruins of Roman Augusta Traiana lie just beneath the streets. Stara Zagora also makes a convenient base for visiting the Thracian tombs and Valley of Roses around nearby Kazanlak, one of the richest concentrations of ancient Thracian heritage in the Balkans.