Lovech (Bulgarian: Ловеч) is a city in North Bulgaria, on the river Osam under the foothills of the Balkan Mountains. A gateway to the important pass Beklemeto and the mountain crafts centre Troyan, it's also home to a number of preserved 19th-century buildings and a covered bridge.

Understand

The Covered Bridge

The partially restored ruins of the Hisarya fortress

Lovech is 30 km (19 mi) almost directly south of Pleven, 75 km (47 mi) west of Veliko Tarnovo, and 120 km (75 mi) north-east of the capital Sofia. With a population of about 27,000 (2021), Lovech is the administrative centre of Lovech Province, and one of the smallest of Bulgaria's 27 province centres, comparable to Razgrad and Silistra. Lovech Province itself extends to the south and south-west, and consists mostly of hilly and mountainous terrain. The only other settlement in the province above 10,000 citizens is the town of Troyan; smaller towns include Teteven, Lukovit, and Letnitsa.

Lovech is one of the oldest cities in Bulgaria.

Tourist information

• Tourist information centre, tic@lovech.bg. closed M; Apr-Oct: Tu-Th 9:00-18:00 (break 13:00-14:00), F-Su 10:00-19:00 (break 14:00-15:00); Nov-Mar: Tu-Th 8:00-17:00 (break 13:00-14:00), F-Su 9:00-17:30 (break 13:00-13:30). Small office on the Covered Bridge itself. The link is to the official tourism website of Lovech Region - in Bulgarian, but there's an automatic translation option. (updated Mar 2025)

Get in

By train

Lovech is a major station on a small secondary line that branches off the main Sofia-Varna line at the town of Levski and ends at Troyan (south of Lovech). This means that getting to Lovech from any other major city requires changing trains at Levski, so you should be careful to pick the right train to minimise waiting time (BDZ's online schedule is invaluable in this regard). It's a 50-60 min ride from Levski, and about the same time to Troyan. From the nearest major city, Pleven, the shortest possible ride time is about 90 min including waiting; from the capital Sofia, the shortest is about 4 hr. Veliko Tarnovo requires two changes (Gorna Oryahovitsa and Levski), and the shortest ride is a bit over 2 hr. Again, it's a god idea to check the schedule for the specific dates first!

The trains stop four times in Lovech, so you have to be careful where you get off:

• 1 Lovech Station (15- to 20-min walk west of the city centre and the Old Town). Lovech's main railway station, i.e. where you'd want to disembark. Small and old-fashioned utilitarian building. As of January 2025, three trains daily in each direction. (updated Jan 2025)
• 2 Lovech North (Lovech Sever, Ловеч Север) (before the central station, coming from Levski). In the industrial area north of the city, far from the city centre. (updated Jan 2025)
• Lovech Halt (Lovech - spirka, Ловеч - спирка) - unattended halt/stop in the industrial area close to Lovech North, for commuting factory workers.
• 3 Lovech South (Lovech Yug, Ловеч Юг) (after the central station, going to Troyan). Another halt/stop in an industrial area, but this time in the southern outskirts of the city. (updated Jan 2025)

By bus

• From Sofia
• From Pleven

See

Most of Lovech's sights are concentrated around its pedestrian main street, the Old Town across the river, and the hill that rises over the Old Town.

• The Hisarya Fortress
• The Covered Bridge. The current bridge from 1931 is 106 m long and has 14 shops
• The Varosha old town part (ethnographic complex), with Drasova and Rashova memorial houses
• The baroque buildings in the town's central parts
• The monument of Vasil Levski
• The monuments to Russian soldiers killed in the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-78

Museums

• Vasil Levski Museum

Do

• Stratesh Park with the biggest zoo in the province
• Bash Bunar Park

Sleep

Budget

• Tinkov House, 8 Daskal Nikola st., ☏ +359 899 812 747, info@tinkov-house.com. From €15. 

Mid-range

• Hotel Lovech, 12 Targovska Str., ☏ +359 68 604 717, info@hotellovech.com. Free access to the fitness gym and the swimming pool. Single room 30 лв. (updated Oct 2023)
• Hotel Varosha, ☏ +359 68 60 33 77, info@hotelvarosha.com. 

Splurge

• Presidivm Palace, 51 Targovska Str., ☏ +359 68 687 501, info@presidivm.com. 

Nearby

Devetashka Cave

• 1 Devetashka Cave (Деветашката пещера, Devetashkata peshtera) (16 km (9.9 mi) north-east of Lovech, on the southern side of National Road 301, which leaves Lovech towards Levski and the E83/National Road 3; between the villages of Yoglav ('Йоглав') and Aleksandrovo ('Александрово'); there's a small road branching south-east and a free parking lot). Summer (Apr-Sep?): 08:00—20:00; winter (Oct-Mar?): 09:00—16:00. Large, open karst cave (the ceiling reaches more than 60 m (200 ft) in height in some places), named after the nearby village of Devetaki ('Деветаки', Devetashkata peshtera = "the cave of Devetaki"). It was inhabited by cave people during the neolithic age, then used by the military to store fuel during the Cold War, now it's a protected habitat of endangered birds and bats. Some scenes of the 2012 action movie The Expendables 2 were filmed there. Adults: 3 лв, various discounts apply. (updated Oct 2024)

  Reaching it by rail is theoretically possible - the nearest station is the unattended stop/halt at Doyrentsi ('Дойренци') on the line between Lovech and Levski; it's a 4.5 km (2.8 mi) hike to the cave.

• 2 Kurshuna Falls (by the village of Kurshuna ('Куршуна'), 30 km (19 mi) north-east of Lovech, 6 km (3.7 mi) south-west of the small town of Letnitsa and 10 km (6.2 mi) south-west of the railway junction town of Levski). A series of low, but picturesque waterfalls, a somewhat famous hiking destination. Like most karst waterfalls, the amount of water varies with the weather - it's best to visit them in late spring. (updated Oct 2024)

Kakrina

Kakrina ('Къкрина') is a village 15 km (9.3 mi) east of Lovech, notable for a single historic event - Bulgarian national hero Vasil Levski was captured by the Ottoman authorities at the Kakrina Inn, which lead to his execution in Sofia in 1873. Now there's a small museum and a monument to Levski.

• 3 Kakrina Inn (Къкринското ханче, Kakrinskoto hanche). Summer (Apr-Sep?): 08:30–12:00, 13:30–17:30; winter (Oct-Mar?): 09:00–12:00, 13:00–17:00. A tiny museum, one of the (more than) 100 National Tourist Sites of Bulgaria, though it's more of a patriotic pilgrimage site. The building is a recreation rebuilt on the foundations of the original inn in the 1930s. Adults: 3 лв, various discounts apply. (updated Oct 2024)