Black Sea Coast
For most foreign package-tourists, the Black Sea coast is Bulgaria, and the big, purpose-built resorts here are becoming serious rivals to Spain and Greece in attracting international holidaymakers.
For most foreign package-tourists, the Black Sea coast is Bulgaria, and the big, purpose-built resorts here are becoming serious rivals to Spain and Greece in attracting international holidaymakers.
By far Bulgaria’s biggest city, Sofia (So-fia) is one of Europe’s most compact and walkable capital cities, although it’s still one of the least known by foreign travellers.
With its innumerable art galleries, winding cobbled streets and bohemian cafés, it would be no exaggeration to call today’s Plovdiv (Plov-div) the Paris of the Balkans.
Bulgaria’s third city and maritime capital, Varna is by far the most interesting and cosmopolitan town on the Black Sea coast, and a definite highlight of the region.
The evocative capital of the medieval Bulgarian tsars, sublime Veliko Târnovo is dramatically set amidst an amphitheatre of forested hills, divided by the ribboning Yantra River.
On a small, rocky island 37km northeast of Burgas, connected to the mainland by a narrow, artificial isthmus, pretty-as-a-postcard Nesebâr (Ne-se-bar) is the jewel in the Bulgarian Black Sea crown.
Cultured Ruse (roo-seh), the fifth-biggest city in Bulgaria, is far more than just a point of passage to Romania, though for many it’s just a stop on the way to or from Bucharest.
The gateway to some of the Black Sea coast’s best beach resorts and most historic towns, Burgas (sometimes written as ‘Bourgas’) rarely features on the tourist itinerary in its own right.
Ancient Sozopol, with its charming, cobbled old town crammed onto a narrow peninsula, is one of the coast’s real highlights.
This unique museum-village, nestled in wooded hills between Karlovo and Sofia, is a perfectly – and deliberately – preserved hamlet filled with Bulgarian National Revival–period architecture, cobblestone streets, and bridges that arc gently over a...
Once just a day trip and now a tourist draw, Tryavna (40km southwest of Veliko Târnovo) has been impressively renovated thanks to EU largesse.
A bit rough around the edges, Kazanlâk is nevertheless a fascinating town where Bulgaria’s various ethnic and religious groups commingle amicably.
There’s an awful lot of concrete in Shumen, but it does make its own beer, Shumensko Pivo.
The modern city of Stara Zagora (literally ‘old behind the mountain’) is an important point for national train and bus lines, though it’s worth seeing for more than the time it takes to make your connection.
Bansko is the big daddy of Bulgarian ski resorts, continually bulldozing new trails and roads, increasing hotel occupancy, and enhancing its entertainment options; indeed, with over 100 hotels and pensions, the once-quiet village now has more beds...
The longest and highest town in Bulgaria, Smolyan is actually an amalgamation of four villages, and the southern Rodopi Mountains’ administrative centre.
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