At the foot of the Pirin mountain the small town-museum of Bansko has many National Revival Period houses.
Inhabited in succession by Thracians, Romans, Byzantines and Slavs, later Bansko was distinguished as an important mercantile and craftsman centre. Large wealthy clans built strong two-storey fortress houses of stone with high walls and heavy solid gates, with long eaves of black fir,
the style of architecture that reached a full bloom during the National Revival
Period.