Every year, 9 million tourists visit Bulgaria. Somewhere between 8 and 8.5 million of them go to the Black Sea coast – Sunny Beach, Golden Sands, the all-inclusive resorts that offer two weeks of sun, sand, and cheap beer for less than the cost of a weekend in Paris. The remaining half a million discover a different Bulgaria: the Rila Monastery (the most beautiful building in the Balkans, a fortress of striped arches and frescoed domes hidden in a mountain valley), the Rhodope Mountains (the legendary home of Orpheus, the Thracian singer who descended into the underworld to rescue his wife – the landscape of pine forests, gorges, and villages unchanged for centuries), and Plovdiv – the oldest continuously inhabited city in Europe (8,000 years of human occupation, a Roman theatre still used for performances, and a creative quarter – the Kapana – that is one of the most exciting food and arts scenes in the Balkans). Here are seven less-known places in Bulgaria that reward the traveller who looks beyond the coast.

1. The Belogradchik Rocks – a fortress built into a mountain

The Balkans are full of fortresses, but the Belogradchik Fortress – built by the Romans, expanded by the Byzantines, the Bulgarians, and the Ottomans – is different: the walls and the towers are integrated into a landscape of 200-metre sandstone pillars, weathered into shapes that look like a petrified army, a castle of giants, or the ruins of a civilisation of stone. The fortress is small (an hour to explore), the views of the Stara Planina (the Balkan Mountains) are magnificent, and the rocks – golden, red, and grey, the colours changing with the light – are one of the most extraordinary natural landscapes in Europe. Entry: ~EUR 3. Getting there: 3 hours from Sofia by car, or a train to Oreshets (3.5 hours) and a taxi (15 min) – the train ride through the Iskar Gorge is one of the most beautiful railway journeys in Bulgaria.

2. Perperikon – the sanctuary of Dionysus

A Thracian religious complex carved into a rocky hill in the Eastern Rhodopes, occupied for 7,000 years – a city of stone altars, sacrificial pits, and a massive palace. The Thracians – the ancient people who inhabited Bulgaria before the Romans, the Greeks, or the Slavs – worshipped Dionysus here, and the excavations have uncovered evidence of the Dionysian rites (the wine, the ecstatic dancing, and the animal – and possibly human – sacrifice) that the Greeks regarded with a mixture of fascination and horror. Perperikon is one of the largest megalithic sites in Europe, and the sense of standing on the altar where the Thracian priests read the future in the smoke of the sacred fire – the wind howling across the hill, the silence of the Rhodopes – is one of the most atmospheric archaeological experiences in the Balkans. Entry: ~EUR 3. Getting there: near Kardzhali, 4 hours from Sofia by car. The site is exposed – wear a hat and carry water in the summer.

3. Koprivshtitsa – the village that time forgot

The most beautiful village in Bulgaria: a cluster of 19th-century houses, painted in the colours of the Bulgarian National Revival (the deep reds, the ochres, the greens, the blues), clustered in a valley of the Sredna Gora mountains, the streets cobbled, the bridges arched over the river, the atmosphere of a place that has been preserved – deliberately, carefully – as a monument to the moment of Bulgaria’s national awakening. Koprivshtitsa was the site of the April Uprising of 1876 – the rebellion against Ottoman rule that was crushed with terrible brutality (the 1876 Batak Massacre – 5,000 Bulgarians killed – horrified Europe and led, indirectly, to the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-78 and the liberation of Bulgaria) – and the houses of the revolutionaries (Todor Kableshkov, Georgi Benkovski) are now museums. Allow a full day. ~2 hours from Sofia by car. The walk up to the hill above the town – the view of the valley, the roofs of the houses, and the mountains beyond – is the essential Koprivshtitsa experience.

4. The Devetashka Cave – a cathedral of stone

A vast karst cave, 2,442 metres long, with seven entrances in the roof – natural skylights, beams of sunlight illuminating the floor like a cathedral – and a river running through the centre. The cave was used as a military fuel depot during the Cold War (the concrete foundations of the tanks are still visible) and a Neolithic dwelling (archaeological evidence dates back 70,000 years), and the scale – the roof soaring 60 metres above the floor, the swallows nesting in the ceiling, the silence broken only by the river and the birds – is awe-inspiring. Free entry. Getting there: ~2 hours from Sofia, near Lovech. Combine with the Krushuna Waterfalls (20 min away – a series of travertine waterfalls, the water the colour of the Plitvice Lakes, the walk through the forest a beautiful companion to the darkness of the cave).

5. The Buzludzha Monument – the abandoned spaceship of the Balkans

On a 1,432-metre peak in the Balkan Mountains, the Buzludzha Monument – the House of the Bulgarian Communist Party, built between 1974 and 1981, a UFO-shaped concrete disc of a building, covered in mosaics of Marx, Engels, Lenin, and the triumphant Bulgarian proletariat, abandoned since the fall of the communist regime in 1989 – is one of the most extraordinary, surreal, and strangely beautiful buildings in Europe. The interior is officially closed (the structure is unstable), but the exterior – the concrete saucer, the shattered windows, the mosaic of the hammer and sickle fading in the mountain weather, the silence and the sense of a civilisation that has vanished – is accessible and utterly memorable. Free. Getting there: ~3 hours from Sofia by car. The road is winding and the peak is often in the clouds – check the weather before you go. The Shipka Pass and the Russian Church (the golden domes, a monument to the Russo-Turkish War, 1,326 steps to the top of the tower – the view is worth the climb) are on the same road.

6. The Krushuna Waterfalls – Bulgaria’s Plitvice

Tucked into a narrow valley near the village of Krushuna, these travertine waterfalls – the same geological formation as the Plitvice Lakes in Croatia – tumble down a series of bright-blue pools, the water rich in calcium carbonate and the colour of a swimming pool in a tropical paradise. The walk to the top of the falls (30-40 minutes, a wooden boardwalk through the forest) is beautiful, the swimming is permitted in the lower pools (the water is cold – it is mountain spring water – but the experience of swimming in a pool of bright-blue water under a waterfall in the middle of a Bulgarian forest is one of the most delightful, and least-known, travel experiences in Europe), and the site is free. Entry: ~EUR 2 for the parking. Allow 1-2 hours. Getting there: ~2 hours from Sofia, near Lovech. Combine with the Devetashka Cave.

7. The Yagodina Cave and the Trigrad Gorge

Deep in the Rhodope Mountains, the Yagodina Cave – 10 km of passages, stalactites and stalagmites, the guided tour taking you through the most beautiful chambers (the “Pearl” – a stalagmite that sparkles with calcite crystals – and the “New Year’s Hall,” where the end of the guided tour is celebrated with a light show and a toast). The Trigrad Gorge – the narrowest and most dramatic gorge in Bulgaria, the cliffs rising 300 metres on either side, the road clinging to the rock, the Devil’s Throat Cave (a separate cave, the water thundering through the darkness – the myth is that Orpheus descended into the underworld through this cave. The reality is wet, loud, and spectacular). Yagodina Cave: ~EUR 5, guided tours on the hour. Trigrad Gorge: free to drive through, ~EUR 4 for the Devil’s Throat. Getting there: ~4 hours from Sofia. A car is essential. The roads through the Rhodopes are narrow, winding, and spectacularly beautiful. Allow a full day for the region.