Tsarevets Fortress

The dramatic hilltop fortress that served as the medieval capital of the Second Bulgarian Empire, dramatically set on a river-girt crag above Veliko Tarnovo. During the empire's height it was one of northeastern Bulgaria's most significant settlements, renowned for pottery and metalwork, before Ottoman forces burned and looted it in the late 14th century. The ruins and placards trace nearly a thousand years of Bulgarian statehood.