The old crafts centre of TRYAVNA may be a byword for icon painting and woodcarving, and features no fewer than 140 listed buildings, but it happily lacks the feel of a museum-town. Most of its visitors are Bulgarians rather than foreigners, and you're more likely to encounter art students sketching than bus parties jostling for a photo opportunity. For carless travellers, trains from Târnovo or regular buses from Gabrovo provide the best means of getting there (travelling by train from Gabrovo entails a change at Tsareva Livada, which makes it quicker to go by bus).

The town's narrow streets are evocative of the nineteenth century: although Tryavna was founded by refugees from Târnovo four hundred years ago, the oldest buildings all post-date the establishment of an official Guild of Master-builders and Woodcarvers in 1804. Often carved with birds and flowers, the wooden houses in the old quarter have an asymmetrical structure that disguises the essential similarity of their interiors. Traditionally, the large room containing the hooded kamina (hearth) was the centre of domestic life and led directly to the chardak or covered terrace; guests were received in a separate room and household goods stored in the ground-floor odaya .