From the roof terrace of our hotel we can see a handful of determined souls on their hands and knees, digging and brushing the soil of Trapezitsa Hill, foraging for ancient relics in the midday sun. Mad dogs and Bulgarian archaeologists, it seems. We nip down to our room for a siesta on crisp cotton. But we're not so different, us and the soil raiders. Whether you are unearthing 5,000-year-old burial sites or unlikely boutique beds, Veliko Turnovo is quite the discovery.
The first backpackers arrived here by default. As a stop on the Bucharest-Istanbul rail route, and being midway between Sofia and the Black Sea coast, it's the kind of place that backpacker flexi-time naturally leads you to. Sprinkled over the basin and hills of a dramatic meander of the Yantra river, Veliko Turnovo is home to Bulgaria's most prestigious university, with more than 10,000 students, and the bars and clubs that keep them entertained.
So how come you've never heard of it? Perhaps you've been distracted. Over the past few years Bulgaria has become a byword for cheap package holidays to the Black Sea coast and credit crunch-friendly ski breaks to Bansko. Veliko Turnovo is one of the country's best-kept secrets.
Keen students of Balkan nationalism will know that it was here that Bulgaria's first constitution was written, and later where the country declared its independence in 1908.
But Veliko Turnovo isn't a place to exercise your brain. It's a place to stare at from as many angles as possible. Our first view, however, is a disappointing one: the bus station is in the new part of town, a botched communist-era job of too much concrete and too many rectangles. We flee, and within 10 minutes we are at the opposite end of the visual spectrum. The Hotel Studio is probably the most stylish hotel in Bulgaria. The sleek reception and chic minimalist rooms wouldn't look out of place in any west European capital. Neither would the design flourishes - dim neon perspex lamps and a plush red armchair by the bed, backing on to a wall pasted in black floral motifs - or the restaurant serving fusion cuisine and fine wines. The £60-a-night tag certainly would.
Up on the roof, we've got the best seat in the house. The bulk of the town is scattered across a hill wedged between two river gorges. We can see the entire western face of the fortifications, bound by a ring of walls and medieval ramparts. In the centre the fortified shaft of the Patriarch's Tower is the king of the castle. North of the fortress is Execution Rock, from where traitors and invading rotters were nudged into the river.
Across the gorge, the archaeologists are digging away at Veliko Turnovo's second hill, where recent excavations have unearthed the burial sites of some of Bulgaria's first kings. The surrounding slopes are coated in forest but where they even out, on hilltops and by the river's wide banks, hundreds of red pantile roofs cap the wood-and-stone houses, which look like a cross between Adriatic villas and Alpine chalets. Behind us, the stark green neo-Byzantine domes of the Sveta Bogoroditsa church bubble from its sandy yellow walls.
We plod through the centre of town into the historic Samovodska Charshiya quarter. On a cobbled street dozens of artisans are peddling their goods. Jewellers chisel and hammer behind wooden workstations, and artists take a break from painting gilt icons on to dark slabs of wood to walk us around their shops. In an antique shop the size of a cupboard a large babushka sits wedged behind a tiny desk, surrounded by a clutter of communist relics, dusty maps and metal figurines.
A few minutes north and we're in the Varosha district, the oldest residential part of town at the top of the hill, and it feels as if we've wandered into a forgotten rural village. Kittens are splayed out on the cobbles, grannies are nattering in the shade. The Hiker's Hostel was the first hostel to set up here six years ago, and now hosts a steady stream of backpackers. We're looking for Hristo Panov, the hyperactive 27-year-old manager famed for his daytrips.
"Take your pick!" he enthuses, before recommending the swimming trip. We are driven half an hour out of town through beautiful parched countryside, down a couple of dirt tracks and via a peculiar little monastery with an ornate rood screen and a painting of Jesus, in which his eyes seem to close as you approach. Weird. When we get to our destination, it becomes obvious why it is Hristo's favourite.
A tributary of the Yantra runs through a succession of natural rock pools in the middle of a forest. Hristo eats two ice creams and smokes half a pack of cigarettes before falling asleep for two hours as we jump into the water from rocky ledges and sunbathe. On the way back we stop off at lookout points where paragliders wait for gusts, and in the tiny village of Arbanasi we visit the sublime Church of the Nativity (Rozhdestvo Hristovo), every inch of which is coated in richly coloured frescoes. Hristo charges us £6 each for the day.
A number of restaurants along Stefan Stambolov, Veliko Turnovo's main street, have no back walls, offering superb views across the gorge. The locals have an odd habit of naming their ventures in the fashion of Newquay clubs - we see a Scream, a Scandal, a Tequila, a Deep Cafe. And they seem to have an obsession with salad. At Ego, which offers the best view of all the restaurants and bars, there are 64 to choose from. There are also 31 grilled options, two dozen stews and a dish called "chicken and vegetable mess". But the bigger-the-menu-the-worse-the-food rule doesn't seem to apply here. The Bulgaria-is-ridiculously-cheap rule does, and we stuff ourselves for under £5 a head with wine.
We're here in the middle of the week and out of term time, so Veliko Turnovo's nightlife - reputedly Bulgaria's best - is relatively subdued. But we give it a go. It turns out that the medieval capital of the Bulgarian tsars has a penchant for gangster rap and techno. It may have the stunning views, a boutique hotel, and more day trips and salads than you could possibly need, but there's never an excuse for double-speed 50 Cent.
· Easyjet.com flies to Sofia. Flythomascook.com flies to Varna. It takes three and a half hours by bus from Sofia to Veliko Turnovo, four from Varna. Double rooms at Hotel Studio (studiohotel-vt.com) from about £60.
