The story of Pirin National Park

The mountains around you form Pirin National Park, a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1983. It was established on 18 November 1962 as Vihren National Park, first covering 67.36 square kilometres, and grew over the years to 403.56 by 1999. No villages or towns lie inside it. The highest point is Vihren at 2,914 metres, Bulgaria's second highest summit and the third in the Balkans, while the lowest, 950 metres, is near Bansko, where the park's directorate is based.

Pirin is renowned for its 118 glacial lakes, the largest and deepest being Popovo Lake. In the deep Golemiya Kazan cirque below Vihren lies the small Snezhnika glacier, which together with Banski Suhodol forms the southernmost glaciers in Europe.

Here also grows Bulgaria's oldest tree, Baikushev's pine, about 1,300 years old, a contemporary of the founding of the Bulgarian state in 681. Keep an eye out for wildlife too: the park counts 45 species of mammals and 159 species of birds.