Bulgaria - Black Sea Coast

Amazingly, I managed to get a Purple Star for excellence for this web page.

I say "amazingly" because, at the time I won the accolade, the lens was somewhat incomplete, although I have now souped it up a bit.

There are networks of well-maintained hiking trails and horse-riding routes allowing you to discover Bulgaria's lush mountainous and forested landscapes and mountains inhabited by bears, lynx, rare birds and other kinds of wildlife now becoming scarce elsewhere in Europe

.The two main cities are the dynamic, cosmopolitan Sofia in central Bulgaria with its lovely parks, sociable alfresco bars and fascinating museums, and sombre but bustling Varna, on the Black Sea Coast.

Bulgaria has numerous architectural treasures, Thracian gold artefacts and Roman remains and there is a world renowned botanical garden and palace in the port of Balchik.

In the cities, many people speak good English but you will not find English much help in the more rural areas. You could certainly make yourself understood with a smattering of German, Russian, Greek and any other European language you can muster up - the Bulgarians are very warm and attentive, and will do their best to communicate.

Having said that, make sure you find out what prices you should be paying, or you might find yourself paying well over the top if you are unlucky - just keep bargaining, and knocking the price down. There is often one price for locals and one price for foreigners, so it pays to have a Bulgarian friend accompanying you when you shop or use a taxi. I call them cowboys, and you can find them in most poor countries.

The well-stocked market is laid out in the town centre, surrounded by trees which shade it from the hot sun in summer. There you will find very nice, very cheap clothes, bags, shoes, gift shops, even jewellery, and of course, food.

There are several good artists selling paintings and they will paint a portrait for you on request.

I had to include this photograph of Pyrrhocoris Apterus - little Bulgarian beetles which I came across in a patch of earth and grass in a wooded area.

Being slightly nerdy, I find such things exciting, particularly so as I had never seen anything like them before - I even went as far as sending the picture to the Natural History Museum in London, in the hopes that I would gain accolades as the discoverer of a new species. They didn't even deign to reply, but a stranger I picked up on the internet identified them as quite a common species in that part of the world - I was both pleased and disappointed. Here's a link to a Wikipedia article about them: Pyrrhocoris Apterus.

You will find monasteries, filled with fabulous icons and watched over by priests, delightful timber-framed villages with smoke curling lazily over the stone-tiled roofs, donkeys neighing and headscarfed women and children staring in wonderment at the arrival of outsiders.

These outside rickety iron staircases are commonplace and there are no internal staircases. OK in summer, not so funny in winter when there is heavy snow.

Most of the hotels have their own swimming pools. This is the pool at the Koral Hotel - it is absolutely beautiful, surrounded by trees, so you can lie in the shade when it gets too hot, and there is a shallow pool for babies, and poolside bar which stays open as long as people want to sit at the tables and drink. Alcohol is very cheap and they are very liberal with the measures. I don't drink cocktails at home, but i certainly do there! I love the pool so much that I have even written a poem about it. One day I'll get round to putting it up on the web with a link from this page.

The Koral Hotel is reasonably priced, and, although it is called a three-star hotel, it is very close to four-star. The food is hot and cold buffet-style help-yourself, and this enables you to sample Bulgarian food in small quantities but large varieties. It is of a good standard. Bulgarians use a lot of vegetables, and the meals are very healthy. The rooms are comfortable and of a good standard, and the whole place is spotless.

There is a friendly bar, and games area, and also a gym and hairdresser. Most of the staff speak English. The dining room is large and airy, but if you want, you can sit outside on the verandah to eat. That's what I used to do - I love the alfresco life.

Bulgaria is now a member of the European Union and a member of NATO and has the feel of a nation at a very important crossroads. Massive foreign investment has created a construction boom, not just around the larger beach and mountain tourist resorts, but in the cities, too, with foreigners investing in property there. Wages are amongst the lowest in Europe and there are serious problems with bureaucratic incompetence and organised crime. Although prices have risen since Bulgaria became a member of the EU, they are still low compared with countries in Western Europe, making it a cheap holiday destination easy and enjoyable to travel round once you've mastered the Cyrillic alphabet and a little Bulgarian to get by

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