View allAll Photos Tagged Pixel8Pro
Veliko Tarnovo ("City of the Tsars") sits on the steep hills above the Yantra River gorge. Its history goes back millenia, but its heyday was in the middle ages, when it served as capital of the Second Bulgarian Empire (1185-1393). During this time Bulgaria regularly clashed with and defeated the Byzantines, and dominated the Balkans. The city and the Bulgarian Empire fell to the Ottomans in 1393 and most of the city's substantial medieval architecture was destroyed, but in due time it became a major center of cultural revival and resistance, culminating in a revolution and, eventually, formal declaration of independence, declared here in 1908. Today some of the medieval fortress has been rebuilt, but the city is most notable for its Bulgarian Revival architecture dating to the 18th and 19th centuries (above). Veliko Tarnovo, Bulgaria.