Gabrovo Travel Guide

Long known for producing leatherwork and textiles that earned the town the sobriquet of the "Manchester of Bulgaria", GABROVO is the focal point for trips to Bozhentsi, or south to the ethnographic complex at Etâra and the nearby Sokolski Monastery . The town itself doesn't have a great range of things to do or places to stay, but it's a charmingly laid-back provincial place, and its efficient municipal tourist office is a good place to pick up information on the surrounding region. To the Bulgarians, Gabrovo is primarily known as the home of the Dom na Humora i Satirata , the House of Humour and Satire, opened on April Fool's Day 1972 in recognition of the position traditionally occupied by the town in Bulgarian humour. People in every country tell jokes about the supposed miserliness of a particular community, and in Bulgaria the butt of the gags has always been Gabrovo. A Festival of Humour and Satire takes place each May, comprising masked carnivals, folk music, animated cartoons, prize-giving and the ritual "cutting off the Gabrovnian cat's tail".