The town of Kresna has 4,600 inhabitants and lies on both sides of the main international road E-79 connecting Sofia to the Greek border. The small town is built at the northern end of the beautiful Kresna gorge of the Struma river, at the foot of the Pirin mountain.
The town is not quite rich in tourist sights. Passers-by are most impressed by the Melo sandstone hills on the left side of the road (if one drives from Sofia down to the Greek border). These have the shape of a giant fan just next to the road and resemble the bigger sandstone hills (so-called mels) typical of the town of Melnik and its surroundings. Apart from these natural formations, one of Kresna’s few benchmarks is a monument dedicated to those killed during the 1878 Kresna-Razlog uprising against the Turkish rule that can be seen upon entrance in the town from the north. Another one is the St Ivan Rilski church-monument that lies on the right side of the road.
Several kilometers away from the town and up in the Pirin mountain, one can get to a beautiful tourist complex, called Sini Vruh or else, Sinanitsa. The complex lies on the hikers’ path to one of the most beautiful lakes in Pirin – the Sinanitsa lake - and a chalet of the same name. The lake and the chalet are situated 28km away from Kresna and it takes about 7 hours of walk to get there.
Once in Kresna, autotourists can take the 3-km offroad from the centre of Kresna to the village of Gorna Breznitsa that lies in the Malashevska mountain. On both sides of the road that advances through the valley of the Breznishka river, tourists can enjoy the view of a 4km-long grove of plane-trees. Further on, 2km to the west of the Gorna Breznitsa village and up in the Malashevska mountain, one can drive to the re-constructed Gorna Breznitsa monastery, St. Prophet Iliya. As most monasteries in the country, this one is built in a marvelous place overlooking to the surrounding mountain ridges and their peaks.
