In the history of the Bulgarian people, worship and humility go hand in hand. Worship is a journey to oneself, a kind of purification and inner rebirth. The object of worship is the holy places in some way connected with religion. In Thrace, these are first and foremost Orthodox monasteries, but also some other sacred sites such as tekke and vows. In towns and villages, these are also religious temples, as well as particularly attractive tourist sites such as the Museum of Religions in Stara Zagora, the Virgin Mary’s Step near the Stara Zagora Mineral Baths and the world’s highest statue of the Virgin Mary in Haskovo. Among the remarkable tourist sites in the area are the Big Basilica and Small Basilica in Plovdiv, the Cathedral in Pazardzhik with its filigree carved iconostasis, the “buried” church in the village of Patalenitsa, the largest rural church (former mosque) in the country in the village of Uzundzhovo, as well as the second largest catholic cathedral on the Balkans, situated in the town of Rakovski. For the Alians, Osman Baba’s turbot in the Haskovo village of Teketo is among their most sacred places of worship. In the Thracian region there are important monasteries, among which is one of the most ancient monasteries in Europe, founded by St. Athanasius of Alexandria in 344 AD near the village of Zlatna Livada. Another site is the Wakhaf monastery in Sakar mountain near the village of Ustrem. Not far away from it are the two rocky churches near the villages of Mihalic and Matochina. They attract visitors with impressive size and acoustics.