Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Getting There & Away
From the bus station ( 605 349; ul Slavyanski) buses serve Sofia (28 lv, four hours,
hourly), Plovdiv (12 lv, 1½ hours), Burgas (21 lv, three hours, every hour), Sliven (10 lv,
1¼ hours, hourly), Varna (34 lv, five hours, five daily), Veliko Târnovo (21 lv, three hours,
seven daily) and Ruse (32 lv, five hours, four daily).
For Kazanlâk (5 lv, 45 minutes), catch a bus towards Veliko Târnovo, or get a direct
minibus from the bus station. Minibuses from Kazanlâk stop in Stara Zagora's centre.
Private companies offer different prices and international destinations such as Athens and
Istanbul.
Stara Zagora's train station ( 626 752) is located at the southern end of ul Mitropolit
Metodii Kusev, a five-minute walk from the bus station. It's on the Sofia-Burgas line.
Trains for Sofia (26 lv, four hours) go via Plovdiv (13 lv, two hours). Eastwards, five daily
trains serve Burgas (11 lv, two hours). Kazanlâk (9 lv, one hour), Veliko Târnovo (13 lv,
three hours) and Ruse (30 lv, six hours); note that changing trains at Tulovo station (about
45 minutes east of Stara Zagora) is often required. There are also three daily services to
Varna (20 lv, five hours).
Rila Bureau ( 622 724) , at the train station, sells advance tickets for domestic trains
and tickets for all international services.
Sliven
044 / POP 101,300
Sitting in a sort of bowl around rocky hills of up to 1000m in height, Sliven is well known
historically for its role in the 19th-century revolution. While the most famous nearby sight
(the so-called 'Blue Rocks') is somewhat lacklustre, Sliven is still a laid-back and authen-
tic small city with unique museums and good accommodation.
Thracians, Romans and Greeks all settled in the Sliven area, but little evidence of their
civilisations remains. Sliven's modern history is inextricably linked to the haidouks, the
anti-Turkish rebels who lived in the rocky hills nearby from the early 18th to the mid-19th
centuries. Eventually uniting under Hadzhi Dimitâr and the revered Vasil Levski, they
rose up successfully against their Turkish overlords.
Despite the plenitude of communist concrete and decrepit apartment blocks, Sliven has
friendly citizens and a foreign presence appropriate to its martial past - Western military
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