Places: regions, cities and coast

Bulgaria covers about 111,000 square kilometres in the eastern part of the Balkan peninsula. It borders Romania along the Danube to the north, Serbia and North Macedonia to the west, Greece and Turkey to the south, and has 378 km of Black Sea coast to the east. More than two-thirds of the land lies below 600 m. The high ground is in the south-west, where Rila and Pirin rise, and along the Balkan Mountains, which run across the middle of the country from the Serbian border to the sea.

For a visitor, that shape produces four practical zones. The capital, Sofia, sits in a high basin in the west, close to the Rila mountains and Rila Monastery. The Thracian lowland to the south-east holds Plovdiv and the roads to Turkey and the southern coast. North of the Balkan Mountains lie the Danube plain and the old capital Veliko Tarnovo. On the east, Varna and Burgas anchor the coast.

Distances are straight from reference sources, not driving times. Mountain roads are slow, and the UK Foreign Office warns that many roads are in poor repair and that driving at night outside the cities is risky. Allow more time than a map suggests.

A first week usually works best with two bases rather than five. Sofia plus one other region is enough: Plovdiv for Roman and Revival-era streets, the Rila or Pirin mountains for walking in summer or skiing in winter, or the coast in the warm months. The regions guide sets out how those pairs work and what each costs in travel time.