Sopot (Bulgarian: Сопот) is a city in central Bulgaria, in Plovdiv Oblast, and the administrative center of the Sopot Municipality. Sopot is located 136 km east of the Bulgarian capital, Sofia, 63 km north of Plovdiv, 61 km south of Troyan, and 5 km west of Karlov. The city lies at the foot of the Balkan Troyan (central Stara Planina), in the fertile Karlovskaya Basin, which forms the western part of the famous Rose Valley. Near Sopot is the starting point of the longest chairlift in the Balkans.
- Culture. In 1992, Bulgaria’s first private television station (“TBC”) was established in Sopot. It broadcasts news, music, and its own films, which have won awards at national and international film festivals.
- Women’s monastery “The Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary” (Bulgarian: Въведение Богородично).
- Ivan Vazov’s family home, which now houses a museum of the writer. Ivan Minchev Vazov (Bulgarian: Иван Минчов Вазов; born June 27?/July 9, 1850 in Sopot, Bulgaria; died September 22, 1921 in Sofia) was a Bulgarian writer, poet, playwright, historian, and politician, brother of General Georgi Vazov. He is considered one of the most important creators of modern Bulgarian literature.
- Monastery “Holy Savior” (Bulgarian: Свети Спас).
- Anevsko fortress from the 13th–14th centuries (Bulgarian: Аневско кале).
- Sports. Since the 1980s, Sopot has been developing as a hang gliding center, and since the early 21st century, it has also become the center of paragliding in Bulgaria.
