After the free walking tour I ended up talking to one of the girls that came on the tour with me,Yu Ting, and decided to go together to...

Rose Festival!

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After the free walking tour I ended up talking to one of the girls that came on the tour with me,Yu Ting, and decided to go together to dinner. While having dinner she told me that there was a rose festival not too far from Plovdiv during the weekend and that she wanted to go. Of course I started googling stuff and soon enough we knew everything about the rose festival. 


I had no idea that we were so close to the Rose Valley, I didn’t even know Bulgaria had a rose valley! Yu Ting couldn’t even believe how ignorant I was about the fact that there was a huge rose festival happening! She actually plan het trip around it!
Well… I like to be surprised! So the more ignorant I am about a place the more surprised I am when cool things happen! For me, that’s the best way to live my life!

The festival had been going on for a month with rose picking and other activities during the weekends but the last three days were apparently the best with the closing parade and what not. I asked for advice in my hostel and the owner said friday was the day to go and see the opening ceremony for the weekend.

Friday morning we decided to wake up extra early to go check out what the rose festival was all about. 

We arrived in Kazanlak after one bus changed and almost 2 hours on the road. It was early in the day so not much was going on. At 10am one ceremony started with military people marching into the main square and then some priest celebrating something and throwing holy water at people. To be honest it was a little boring so we decided to keep walking.


Look at those knifes... scary!


Well.. that priest is clearly enjoying getting everyone wet!

Around the main square there were stands with anything imaginable made out of roses: parfume, lotions, face creams, rose oil, body splash, candles, jam, drinking water, holy water, honey, I bet they had vagisil with rose scent! I swear, whatever you wanted, they had it!






We ended up going to the rose museum which ended up being a tad boring and it just made my heart ache by knowing how many kilograms of rose petals are needed for a kilo of rose oil!



The military parade came to the museum and everybody put flowers on this guy!

The visit to the museum was… short. I was bored and decided to sit on the bench outside the museum and… I fell asleep! I looked at my clock and it wasn’t even noon and the next ceremony was at 5pm! What to do with all our time?

oh yes, arm painting will kill some time!

In the afternoon it started raining so we decided to go back to Plovdiv and return on sunday for the parade and rose picking ritual.

Sunday morning we woke up early and got to the bus station at 6:45am to take the one and only morning bus to Kazanlak. We left so early it was impossible to catch a bus to the north bus station and it also seemed impossible to get a taxi! Ahhhhh!  Thankfully one kind lady on the street called a taxi company and within 3 minutes we were on our way!

We arrived at the bus station and while waiting for the bus I heard a couple speaking Spanish and of course I jumped at the opportunity of speaking Spanish and asking them where they were from. It turned out they were Colombians studying in London and taking a mini vacay in Bulgaria.

After a two hour snooze in the bus we made it to Kazanlak, grabbed some food, got on a cab, and got dropped off at the Rose picking ritual location.

At the entrance we had to pay $15 to get a paper basket to go pick roses and admittance for the festival.
As soon as we entered we could see a lot of … chinese people… other than that there were a whole lot of roses and locals dressed up in traditional gowns ready to put on a show!


There were many ladies and girls making leis and rose crowns and selling them for super cheap, like $4 for a crown full of beautiful roses!!! There were people in carriages, a man playing the accordion, ladies sewing, ladies selling traditional Bulgarian pastries… it was a beautiful chaos!











The main part of the festival was the welcoming of the special guests and then doing some beautiful traditional dances.












After all the dancing it was time for the people to go into the rose plantations and cut some roses! By then I had lost all my people but smart people think alike and guess who I found in the far part of the plantation? The Colombians, Camila and Sebas!
All the chinese were in the first five rows trying to get roses but there were so many of them that all the pretty ones were gone so it just made sense to walk to the back where there was no people!

Notice the one tree in the middle! haha

Camila being my model!





We had great fun picking roses and getting our shoes covered in mud but guess what I found? The one and only cherry tree in the whole rose plantation! It was destiny! I forgot all about roses and it became all about the cherries (good thing I had found an extra paper basket on the floor earlier!)
I was determined to climb the cherry tree! But… it was surrounded by thorny rose bushes so guess what? Not a good idea to climb! but… I pulled enough branches to fill up my basket!





By the time I finished picking cherries and Camila and Sebas finished laughing at me for picking cherries we decided it was time to go! We looked for Yu Ting and the other girls but couldn’t find them. Tour busses were leaving, everybody was leaving, we were far from the city, and there were zero taxis on sight. All of a sudden I saw a guy that came in at the same time than us (power of observation is key in traveling!) and I went to him and asked how to get back to Kazanlak and guess what? He offered us a ride! Perfect!


We made it back to town and in time for the parade which was… lame! haha We first stood by the “special guests” and it was funny to see everybody on the parade walking and when they got close to the special people they would start doing all the fancy tricks! After about 20 minutes and at least one “despacito” I’ve had enough and we decided to leave the parade.



 There wasn’t much to do so we walked around for 20 minutes or so and then returned to the parade. This time it was cool to see the traditional costumes.

Not sure that bear looking guy is traditional of Bulgaria!




By then the festival was pretty much over so we decided to go for lunch and ice cream and wait until it was time to head back to Plovdiv! I enjoyed the time at the festival and although I would not go to Bulgaria just for it, it was nice to be around when it happened!







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About Post Author

Hi! It's me... Andrea! In 2016 I decided to drop everything and take a year to enrich my life and travel around the world. It turns out the world is just too big for 12 months! Still on the road and sharing my experience as a solo female traveler around the globe!

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About me




Hi! It's me... Andrea!

In this blog you can live vicariously through my journey around the world!

Please feel free to share tips or places to go!
Contact me: andreaheartstraveling@gmail.com