Foreign investors are competing to invest in Ruse (northeastern Bulgaria). Spanish, German and Greek companies are willing to buy terrains and build factories in the future industrial park near the Danube River. The park will be erected on 64 ha of land. The main investor, the French company Montupe, will spend around 80 million euro on the project.

Administrative and bureaucratic procedures and the ill-developed infrastructure at the Pamporovo mountain resort were the main obstacles for building companies, according to Stoyanov, manager of a building company.

`A nice evening drive over the smooth road through Plovdiv ended in the town in Karlovo (144 km east of Sofia). A group of close friends invited me to spend a merry weekend with them in the birthplace of Bulgaria's greatest hero Vassil Levski (1837- 1873). Levski dedicated his life to freeing the Bulgarians from the Ottoman Empire and managed to set up a network of secret revolutionary committees throughout the country. The Ottoman police persecuted him for years and caught him in the end. He was hanged in Sofia. But Karlovo is home to other famous people; it's also the birthplace of the father of poet Hristo Botev, another Bulgarian hero. Dr. Ivan Bogorov was the publisher of the first Bulgarian newspaper and brothers Evlogi and Hristo Georgievi who had the Sofia University built. With this in mind, it's not strange that there are many museums in Karlovo. But that's not where we headed first. After travelling no matter what distance, all I really desire is a hot bath and a good meal.

So you’ve been to Bansko in the winter. You’ve tried to walk its crowded streets and tried to find a parking space.
You’ve been skiing in the day and drinking in the mehani (taverns) at night - if you found a table - and you probably think there is nothing much to do in Bansko in the summer and it is nothing but a sleepy town.
Well, you are wrong.

A trek through Bulgaria's Rila Mountains takes in shimmering lakes, dense woodlands and ancient monasteries. Robert Nurden enjoys the walk

IT WAS a Thursday. I got a last-minute offer of a holiday. I texted all my pals - what's Bulgaria like?

Silence. No one knew anything about Bulgaria, although it turned out that one of our editors had been there 20 years ago, but he hadn't been allowed to talk to anyone as it was still under communist rule, so he wasn't much use either.

BOROVETS is home to the first and most famous Bulgarian mountain resorts. Only 73km, and less than 50 minutes away from Sofia, the village sits at an altitude of 1350 metres at the base of Mt Moussala (2925m), the highest peak on the Balkan peninsula.

You may think the good old Europe is so familiar to you that it can hardly surprise you with something new. But…

Do you know which the oldest country in Southeast Europe is?
This is Bulgaria. It was founded in 681 and is the oldest Slavonic country.

Veliko Turnovo is the Shangri La of Bulgaria. Clustered on hills – its houses like red-roofed barnacles – and divided by serpentine rivers, the city is a haven both for Bulgarians seeking to reclaim their past and expats seeking to escape theirs. It is, without a doubt, the country’s most beautiful town.

Sozopol means town of salvation in ancient Greek and is one of the oldest settlements in Bulgaria. It was founded 2600 years ago by Greek migrants from Asia Minor. The seafarers saw the small peninsula with cozy bays and a string of small islands that looked like a paradise on earth. On the remnants of a Thracian settlement they founded a thriving city-state, and called it Apollonia after Apollo, the god of light, poetry, music and healing.
This is probably the reason why the place has always been a magnet for artistic and imaginative people.