The first time I went to Ostrusha I followed a path dotted with wild poppies swaying in the breeze — very fitting, because this is the land of the dead. Around Kazanlak, a city plum in the geographical centre of Bulgaria, stretches a vast plain, a valley unfurling between two mountain ranges.
Some call it the Rose Valley for the pink-blooming fields that have grown here since the 18th century; others call it the Valley of the Thracian Kings. About 2,500 years ago, this was the place where the Thracians — an ancient tribe that fanned out west from the Black Sea — buried their leaders. A thousand or so grassy barrows and tumuli rise from the ground, turning the pancake-flat plain into Teletubbyland.
Roughly a tenth have been excavated, and five are open to the public. Of those, Ostrusha is my favourite (£3; muzei-kazanlak.org). It’s a huge burial mound: think Wiltshire’s Silbury Hill, only half the size, swaddled by fields and orchards, and the front of the hillock sliced neatly off to reveal the temple-tomb (they doubled as both, archaeologists think).
You enter to see ruined chambers set around a central room, essentially a gargantuan sarcophagus. To preserve the interiors (a coffered roof with painted mythological scenes and human faces), that sarcophagus-chamber has been wrapped in a glass box, and as the sun sets, your reflection flashes a memento mori in the panes. The guide, Antoinette Vuleva, ambles over, and if you’re me, she’ll say: “Weren’t you here before?” That’s the wonderful thing about this valley: there’s no sign of overtourism, and if you visit twice in six months, you’ll stand out.
This might change. The second time I went to Ostrusha — in November, as a grey wall of snow drove over the Stara Planina (Balkan Mountains), painting the hillsides the colour of bone — I was in Kazanlak for a spa break at the city’s first five-star hotel.
The Kings’ Valley Medical and Spa Hotel opened for New Year 2023 four miles south of Kazanlak in Ovoshtnik, known for its thermal springs (or as Bulgarians call them, mineral waters). It’s the sister property to two of the capital’s swanky five stars: the Grand Hotel Sofia and the Millennium Sofia Grand Hotel. The owners, the manager Viktor Getov told me, wanted to branch out into spa tourism. Bulgaria has always been known for its waters domestically, but it has yet to reach the international fame of Hungary, say, or Italy.
Enter Kings’ Valley, a behemoth resort with 266 rooms, three restaurants, a nightclub, an indoor-outdoor thermal water complex of eight pools, and a spa that combines traditional wellness with hardcore medical programmes. It’s built around a spring which gushes out at 78C; the hotel has cleverly harnessed it to heat the lobby, spa and some of the water supply, as well as serving the pools.
I booked a night here last May, when I passed through Kazanlak on a Bulgaria road trip. One step inside the vast lobby — Turkish stone polished to a marble gloss at my feet, the vast ceiling coffered, backlit and propped up by megalithic columns — and I decided to make it two nights. A dip in the 25m pool, its crystal-clear spring water mixed with regular to make it swimmable, and I upped it to three. This was the kind of luxury that costs well into triple figures back home, but here barely tops £99.
In May I was mostly outside, visiting tombs and smelling the roadside roses mid-harvest, but once I’d had a rose-oil massage, and those Ovoshtnik waters had cleared up an eczema patch, I vowed to return — less history this time, and more spa.
It turns out the two are intertwined. Though Kings’ Valley looks like the kind of colossal resort that’s as shiny as it is sterile, it’s shot through with references to the local area. The lobby’s ceiling mimics that of Ostrusha. The fluted columns imitate those at Shushmanets, another Thracian tomb, whose half-columns were slathered in marble dust and beeswax to glow in the penumbra. Geometric slashes on the bedroom carpets echo the sharp lines of the tombs, while rooms pointing north look towards the valley through floor-to-ceiling windows.
The sprawling rooms are plush — think a good four-star in UK terms — with Acqua dell’Elba toiletries in the bathrooms, comfy sofas and balconies, though less great soundproofing (I had a yapping dog next door). But Kings’ Valley is really all about the 4,000 sq m spa.
The water at Ovoshtnik is rich in fluoride, which is good for the bones and joints. Here you can bubble away in a thermal hot tub, steam outside in soaking pools, float with (noisy) children indoors, or swim laps in the pool, watched over by faux classical statues. During the day the pools were packed, but first and last thing I largely had them to myself, as the other guests — 90 per cent of them Bulgarian — hit the buffet. I don’t blame them: the breakfast counters, groaning with local cheeses, preserved plums, chunky pink tomatoes and ayran, a salty yoghurt drink, were a sight to behold. Sofra, the restaurant beyond the outdoor pools, also had superb Bulgarian food, from parsley meatballs to juicy pork ribs with homemade barbecue sauce (mains from £8).
• More great wellness holidays
As for the spa treatments, the list straddles regular bodywork and relaxing woo-woo. I had the women-only Rose Attar treatment, where I was doused in local rose oil, given a shiatsu massage and had my meridians (energy points in traditional Chinese medicine) “activated” — such heady relaxation that I drifted straight out and booked another. For those of us on UK salaries, these are five-star treatments on a three-star budget. Fifty-minute massages start from £50 and body scrubs with local lavender and rose oils from £32. My therapist, the delightful English-speaking Simona Simeonova, was one of my all-time greats. It was she who’d delivered that May massage so good that I planned this return.
For those of us with chronic ailments, the medical side offers everything from cryotherapy to electrostimulation. The charming Dr Hristo Binev (he didn’t speak English but Nicole Ilieva from the spa reception translated) prescribed me magnet resonance therapy for my arthritic knee, where a giant magnet was placed over the joint to stimulate cartilage renewal. The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence says it’s little better than a placebo; either way, four treatments left me pain-free till February. Much use is made of the Ovoshtnik waters: galvanic baths (thermal water with a light electrical current run through them), mud mixed from Black Sea earth, and balneotherapy are all on offer. These treatments start from £9.
Each day I slipped out to Kazanlak; it’s not pretty like the Bulgarian big-hitters Plovdiv or Veliko Tarnovo, but it is bursting with culture. Keeping things contemporary is Art Gallery Kazanlak, a scattered museum with Bulgarian art from the 1800s onwards in its main premises, plus two house-museums of eminent local artists, and a separate bungalow housing just one painting (£3 gallery, £3 house museums; artgallerykazanlak.com). Ahinora is an elusive portrait of a mythical Bulgarian woman by the Secession-influenced Ivan Milev — think the Mona Lisa as painted by Klimt and Tamara de Lempicka.
Thirty minutes away is the city of Stara Zagora, home to mind-blowing remains of two 8,000-year-old neolithic houses, complete with kitchens and fireplaces (£3; rimstz.eu). On the way is a wonderful winery, Better Half, where Nikolay Dalakov brews everything from vermentino to Bulgarian mavrud, often using Georgian qvevri clay vessels (tastings £42; facebook.com/betterhalfgaragewines).
Ancient history is everywhere. The Iskra Museum of History has artsy displays of neolithic tools, troves of Thracian gold and inscriptions from Seuthopolis, the capital of the 4th-century BC King Seuthes III, now flooded by the nearby Koprinka reservoir (£3; muzei-kazanlak.org). Out in the valley, there are more tumuli to explore, including Golyama Kosmatka, thought to be Seuthes’ tomb. Through the hillside, down a corridor of Inca-smooth stones, you’re greeted by the heads of Medusa and Helios carved onto stone doors, which open into a mysterious tholos (beehive-shaped) chamber (£3; muzei-kazanlak.org).
In Kazanlak itself, guarded by chubby cats, is the most beautiful of all. The hilltop Kazanlak tomb, as it’s called, was frescoed in the 4th century BC with (presumably) a funeral banquet in the central tholos. A Unesco-inscribed monument, it was closed to visitors in 2012 but there’s a full-scale replica beside it (£3; muzei-kazanlak.org).
In the central chamber, horses gallop around the domed roof in a race to eternity. Below is the funerary procession: women tooting trumpets as more horses follow, a hoof stamping here, a nostril flaring there. In the centre, a woman offers pomegranates to a seated couple. He’s at the table — perhaps his own funeral feast. She’s beside him, frowning — the grieving widow? They reach out to hold hands across the void, a depiction of eternal love nearly 2,400 years old. Again, it was my second visit in six months. Again, I was there alone.
We know little about the Thracians. Their language hasn’t survived, their rituals are still a mystery, and their culture was eventually extinguished by the Romans, yet their sacred spaces ooze with their humanity. Kings’ Valley is quietly growing visitor numbers to Kazanlak — it had 148,000 guests in 2024 — but it’s still way off anything you’ll see in Rome or Athens. As other ancient European sites are squeezed to the overtouristed gills, this peaceful Valley of the Kings is a respite from the rest.
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Julia Buckley had a discounted stay at Kings’ Valley Medical & Spa Hotel, which has B&B doubles from £107 (kingsvalleyhotel.bg). Fly to Sofia
Three more great eastern European holidays
By Siobhan Grogan
A week in Georgia
Whizz round the best bits of Georgia on a seven-night small-group itinerary with daily guided tours for no-hassle sightseeing. The week starts with two nights in a hotel in the capital Tbilisi, with its red-roofed old town, dramatic churches and hip café scene. After wine tasting in Merebashvil’s Marani, you’ll spend a night in a hotel in Kutaisi, the former capital, and two in Akhaltsikhe, visiting the Unesco-listed Gelati monastery complex and the fascinating cave town of Vardzia. A gala dinner, folklore show and trip to Stalin’s birthplace, Gori, are also included.
Details Seven nights’ half-board from £1,395pp, including flights, transfers and guided tours (best-of-caucasus.co.uk)
See the city sights in Prague, Vienna and Budapest
Historic sights, world-class museums and centuries-old cobbled streets make eastern Europe capitals unbeatable in the city break stakes. On this seven-night escorted tour, you’ll take in a trio, spending three nights in Prague, two in Vienna and two in Budapest, all in stylish four-star hotels. There’s plenty of free time for shopping and art galleries, but a walking tour of each city is included, as is a cruise on the Danube. Optional extras include excursions to the former East German city of Dresden and Schönbrunn Palace, where Mozart once performed.
Details Seven nights’ B&B from £1,373pp, including fights, transfers and guided tours (newmarketholidays.co.uk)
Explore Kosovo, Albania and North Macedonia
Focusing on some of Eastern Europe’s lesser-visited destinations, this 14-night small-group tour visits the mountains, monasteries and mosques of Albania, Kosovo and North Macedonia. Starting in Albania’s capital Tirana, with its citadels and Ottoman architecture, it includes ten nights in hotels and four in local guesthouses with stops in Albania’s Shkoder, one of the oldest cities in Europe; the remote Valbona Valley in northern Albania; and Peja in Kosovo, the gateway to the Rugova Mountains. Along the way, expect hiking, a visit to a 6th-century fortress in Prizren, Kosovo, and a boat trip on the mountain-ringed Lake Koman in Albania.
Details Fourteen nights’ B&B from £1,993pp, including activities and some extra meals (trailfinders.com)
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