Zlatograd

Zlatograd is the southernmost town in Bulgaria, in the eastern Rhodopes right on the Greek border, and its old quarter has been restored as an ethnographic complex: a cobbled street of nineteenth-century houses holding working workshops where a cutler, a weaver, a potter, a tinsmith, a leather worker and others make things by hand and sell them, along with a water mill, a fulling mill, a school and museums of education and crafts. It is a made arrangement rather than a survival, but the crafts are genuinely worked rather than demonstrated. A border crossing to Greece opened here in 2010 after decades closed. The surrounding hills are tobacco country with scattered villages.

History

Under Ottoman rule the town, then called Darıdere, was the seat of a district of the Sanjak of Gümülcine in the Adrianople Vilayet from 1867 to 1912. It keeps much of its Ottoman-era architecture, with many old buildings, two 19th-century Orthodox churches and a mosque, and the road crossing to Thermes in Greece opened on 15 January 2010 (Wikipedia, Zlatograd).

What you'll find

• A street of working workshops - cutler, weaver, potter and tinsmith at their benches.
• Water and fulling mills - the working machinery restored on the stream.
• Nineteenth-century houses - the restored old quarter.
• The southernmost point of the country - the town on the Greek border.

When to go

April to October. Half a day. Workshops keep working hours and some close on Mondays and at weekends. It is quiet outside Bulgarian holidays.

Good to know

The ethnographic complex is a curated arrangement and reads as one. Individual workshops and museums are separately ticketed. Some workshops are closed on any given day. The town is remote with limited public transport.

Nearby

The Greek border crossing is at the edge of town; Smolyan lies north-west.

Key facts