The Thracian Tombs

The Thracians left no literature of their own, so their tombs do the talking. The one at Kazanlak, built around the end of the fourth century BC and found by soldiers digging in 1944, is a beehive-domed chamber reached by a narrow corridor, and its interior is painted with a funeral feast: a seated couple holding hands, chariots, horses and offering-bearers, in colours that survived more than two thousand years underground. The original is sealed for conservation and visitors enter an exact replica built alongside, which is less romantic and entirely justified. At Sveshtari in the northeast, a second UNESCO-listed tomb takes a different approach, with ten female figures carved in half-relief appearing to hold up the roof of the burial chamber.

What you actually see

• Kazanlak tomb replica - a full-size copy of the painted chamber, beside the sealed original.
• Sveshtari tomb - caryatid figures in half-relief supporting the chamber roof.
• The Valley of the Thracian Kings - hundreds of burial mounds across the plain, several excavated.
• The Rose Valley - rose oil distilleries and the June harvest around Kazanlak.

When to go

May to October. Early June is the rose harvest, when the fields around Kazanlak are picked at dawn and the town holds its rose festival, which is the single best week to be here.

Honest expectations

You do not see the original Kazanlak paintings, and some visitors feel short-changed by the replica; going in knowing that helps. The tombs are small and a visit is short, so combine them with the rose valley or the Shipka sites. Sveshtari is a long way from Kazanlak, in a different part of the country entirely.

Nearby

Shipka Pass and its memorial church are above Kazanlak; Plovdiv lies south.