Museum of Roses, Stara Zagora Province, Bulgaria

3Kconcannon 5:00 PM Feb 15, 2015

when you're the only game in town...
Kazanlak produces more than 80% of the world's rose oil. It is a labor intensive process requiring kilos of rose petals to produce just an ounce of rose oil. I had heard about the valley of roses for years and had really wanted to visit. Now that I've been once, I would go back, but do it very differently. I visited the rose museum on a taxi tour of Kazanlak and surrounding areas. It is fairly unobtrusive, and we nearly drove right by it. It is definitely a 20th century museum with posters and text describing the equipment used. I did not get much out of it the exhibit on how rose oil is made. One of the highlights of the museum is the area dedicated to the Rose Festival. It traces the history of the festival and has photos from almost every single year. While it still seems a little dated, it is definitely entertaining to look at fashions from decades past and see what has remained the same and what has changed. The Rose Museum seems to be a bit of an afterthought which is unfortunate given the importance of the rose oil industry to the area. It is a 20th century relic that could use an update. I hope that as more tourists visit this part of Bulgaria (and it is absolutely beautiful!), that the museum gets a face lift and renewed life. In the meantime, it is the only place to go to read about the local industry. If you are able to visit one of the agro tourism rose farms, you can probably give the museum a miss.

3Ted 5:00 PM May 5, 2019

nice display but could be better
The park surrounding the museum with its many roses is also great to see. The museum itself is nice but not terribly well organized. The small gift shop that sold products was closed for inventory (the workers were just milling around) - just like in the communist days where the customer is always wrong.