Bulgaria

Nodding means no. Shaking your head means yes. Take it slowly

Bulgaria is best known abroad for cheap beach packages on the Black Sea and cheap ski weeks in Bansko, and both are genuinely good value. But the country outside those two industries is barely visited, which is a strange situation for somewhere with Thracian tombs, Roman amphitheatres and monasteries in the mountains.

Sofia is an easy city to underrate. It has a Roman ruin under the metro station, an Orthodox cathedral of real grandeur, mineral springs people still queue at with bottles, and Vitosha mountain close enough to hike after work. Plovdiv is the better-looking one: one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in Europe, with a restored old town and a Roman theatre still in use.

The head-shaking thing is real and genuinely disorienting. A nod means no and a shake means yes, and while many Bulgarians will switch for foreigners, plenty will not. Combined with Cyrillic script, which was developed here, the first day involves more confusion than the country actually warrants.

Annual events and festivals

• Kukeri (Jan-Feb) — men in enormous animal costumes and bells parade to drive out evil spirits. Ancient and genuinely startling.
• Baba Marta (1 Mar) — red and white martenitsi tokens worn until the first stork or blossom is seen.
• Rose Festival, Kazanlak (Jun) — Bulgaria supplies much of the world rose oil. The harvest gets a parade.
• Nestinarstvo (3-4 Jun) — barefoot fire dancing on embers in Strandzha villages. UNESCO listed.
• Surva, Pernik (Jan) — the largest masquerade games festival in the Balkans.
• Sofia Film Fest (Mar) — the leading film festival in the region.
• Apollonia Festival, Sozopol (Sep) — arts festival on the Black Sea coast.
• Independence Day (22 Sep) — marks full independence from the Ottoman Empire in 1908.
• Bansko Jazz Festival (Aug) — free open-air jazz in a mountain town.
• Christmas and Survaki (Dec-Jan) — children tap elders with decorated dogwood sticks for good luck.