Wine and cultural tour “Visit the kings, enjoy great wines and try the special aromatized wine of Osmar”

We depart from Sofia, Plovdiv, and Stara Zagora and head to Sungurlare – The Valley of the wine. We will visit the museum collection “Viticulture and Enology”, dedicated to grapes, which includes jars with examples of old varieties, and then we will enjoy a tasting in the elegant winery “Zelanos”. We will try several wines, including the famous Muscat – a delicate, fragrant, typical Bulgarian variety, with flavors reminiscent of white flowers, green apple, and citrus. In Smyadovo – the former center for the production of the famous Smyadovo sausage, which is made from the endangered breed of black pigs Eastern Balkan pig, we will try the famous sausage, known in Bulgarian as “Smyadovska Lukanka”. Later we will visit Veliki Preslav – the pearl of King-Simeon`s Bulgaria. The day will end with a tasting of the special aromatized wine of the village of Osmar, where wine has been made since the time of the First Bulgarian State (681-1018). According to legend, when Khan Krum uprooted the vineyards, he kept the plantations in the Osmar area for personal use.

After breakfast, we head to Pliska – the capital of the First Bulgarian Kingdom. For two centuries – from the founding of the Bulgarian state in 681 to 893, the city was the main political, military, cultural and economic center. In addition, Pliska is one of the most impressive monuments of medieval European urban planning. The most remarkable architectural monument of that time is the Great Basilica. With its 2,920 square meters, it was the largest Christian church on the Balkan Peninsula. We will also visit a unique cultural and historical complex not only for Bulgaria but also for the world – The Yard of the Cyrillic alphabet. This home of the Cyrillic letters and their history was created by an Armenian – Karen Aleksanyan, who settled in Bulgaria and learned a lot about our history. Here are the impressive sculptures (hand-carved from stone) of Cyrillic letters, art gallery, Alley of Writers, which presents artists from national cultures and religions, who wrote in Cyrillic. In the afternoon we visit the Madara Horseman – the only one of its kind in Europe and included in the UNESCO World Heritage List. The tour ends in the “Tsarev Brod” cellar with wine tasting, including Gergana – a white wine grape variety, selected by crossing Dimyat and Muscat Ottonel.