Village square
Melnik, Bulgaria
Melnik is a small town in southwest Bulgaria in the Pirin Mountains where the soft sandstone reveals eroded faces. The town dates from the 12th century CE and grew to over 25,000 inhabitants before the Balkan Wars when the majority of structures were destroyed. There is a Byzantine ruin within the town but the present surviving historic dwellings date from the 18th to the early 20th century when the area was under Ottoman control. The town formed along the Rožen streambed and Melnik River that flows south into the Struma river and eventually into the Strymonian Gulf of the Aegean Sea. (photo 1994)
