THE BLACK SEA COAST
Introduction Kavarna
Balchik
Albena
Golden Sands
Aladzha Monastery
Sv. Konstantin And Elena
Varna
Sunny Beach
Nesebur
Pomorie
Burgas
Sozopol
South of Sozopol
For almost three millennia, lured by its abundance of natural resources and closeness to the main trading centres of antiquity, people have colonised the Black Sea coast - in Bulgarian, Cherno More (Черно Море). Thracians, Greeks, Romans, Byzantines, Bulgars and Turks, all have left their mark on an area that today, because of its almost tropical climate and miles of golden beaches, is one of Bulgaria’s major attractions. Its potent mix of beautiful scenery and picturesque and ancient towns draws visitors from around the world, and the two major Black Sea ports of Varna and Bourgas, the smaller coastal towns of Kavarna, Balchik and Pomorie and the picturesque museum towns of Nesebur and Sozopol have all developed facilities for summer visitors. In the 1950`s the government decided to capitalise on the increasing popularity of the area with both Bulgarians and visitors from the Eastern Bloc and built a series of custom-built resorts on particularly attractive stretches of beach. Four of these were opened, St. Konstantin and Elena (or Drouzhba - `friendship` as it was then called), Golden Sands (Zlatni Pyasatsi) near Varna Albena in the north near Balchik and Sunny Beach (Slunchen Bryag) near Burgas. After 1989, these resorts, modernised and adapted to Western tastes, became the engine for a boom in cheap package holidays for visitors from Europe and further afield. They all follow the same pattern, a long line of hotels set in wooded countryside close to the beach with a surrounding complex of restaurants, nightclubs and open-air markets. More recently two smaller and more intimate resorts have been opened, Elenite and Dyuni.
All these resorts cater for family package holidays with ample facilities for children, a wide range of water-based activities - water-skiing, windsurfing, sailing, parascending and scuba-diving and numerous excursions to local places of interest and further afield to Sofia and Istanbul. For the independent traveller there are small hotels, private guest houses, rooms and campsites in smaller towns and villages up and down the coast.
KAVARNA (Каварна) and CAPE KALIAKRA (Калиакра)
Established as a Greek colony, Kavarna was the capital of a small independent principality in the 14th century established by a local boyar Balik and continued by his son Dobroticha. Today the town is a sleepy little port, dependent on grain exports, whose main attraction is the Town Museum in a converted mosque and the little beach resort of Morska Zvezda, 2kms. from the centre of town. Kavarna makes a good base from which to explore Cape Kaliakra, an impressive 230 ft. high crag of reddish stone some 4 kms. beyond the village of Bulgarevo (regular bus from Kavarna) and the impressive coastline up to the Romanian border. Known to the ancients as Cape Tisiris, it was fortified, according to Strabo, as early as the 4th century BC. The remains of these can be seen on the shore below the crag. The fortifications were strengthened by the Romans and Byzantium and again by Balik. The name Kaliakra, meaning `beautiful headland` was adopted in the Middle Ages. One particularly gruesome legend attached to the cape from Ottoman times is that of forty Bulgarian women who tied their hair together and flung themselves off the top rather than suffer a worse fate at the hands of the Turks. The cape has been the site of numerous naval battles down the ages, the most recent of which, the Turkish fleet’s defeat by the Russian Admiral Ushakov in 1791, is remembered in a museum in one of the caves that have been hollowed out by the sea under the headland. Kaliakra`s greatest charms, though, are natural, the mass of wildflowers that bloom on the headland in season, the seabirds that nest on the crags and the rare monk seals that sun themselves on the lower rocks. Over the centuries, the cape has fortified many times and the remains of these fortifications are evident all over the cape. Further up the coast at Kamen Brag is Yaila (Яйла), an ancient cave city built into the rocks on the coast and a Byzantine fort, now an archaeological reserve (signposted from the centre of the village) Further north is relatively unspoilt coast and two lakes, Shablensko near the village of Ezerets and Dourankoulak, near the village of the same name, which provide good bird-watching. Golf is not a generally popular pastime in Bulgaria, but south of Kavarna, near the little resort of Ikantaluka are three golf resorts.
BALCHIK (Балчик)
Perched on sandy cliffs and a succession of small hills, Balchik`s cluster of whitewashed houses topped by Queen Marie of Romania`s Summer Palace is the epitome of the traditional Black Sea resort. Indeed it does make a quiet base, a little off the beaten track, from which to explore the northern Black Sea coast. The town was first settled in Thracian times when it was given the name of Krouni, `city of springs` because of the natural springs to the west of the town. The Greeks gave it the name Dionysopolis, city of Dionysus, in honour of its patron, the god of wine and joy and the town became an important trading centre, minting its own gold and silver coins. Its present name is supposed to have come from Balik (see Kavarna) or the Turkish word Balchik meaning `mud` (the town’s harbour regularly silts up). During Ottoman times the town’s inhabitants were predominantly Turkish, including a number of Tatars, settled here after the 18th century Russo-Turkish wars, and a considerable number remained after the Liberation. Between 1913 and 1940 the town was part of Romania.
Balchik`s main attraction, apart from strolling the attractive, narrow streets, is the Summer Palace, a little west of the town. Built in 1931 for Queen Marie of Romania, who named it the Quiet Nest, it is a three storey building topped with a minaret in a mixture of Oriental and European styles, intended to reflect the Queen’s preoccupation with bringing Muslim and Christian together. The 18 pavilions in the surrounding Botanical Garden, for the royal guests, are also in oriental style. The garden contains a variety of fountains and ponds, colonnades, watermills, a cactus garden, Gardens of Allah and Gethsemane, thrones hewn out of stone or marble, a silver well and, among 3000 species, over 300 varieties of rare plants. Towards the sea are six terraces, one for each of Marie’s six children, the lowest truncated to commemorate the youngest who died age two of typhoid. A small chapel contains a full-length portrait of Marie and her daughter Iliana and has an iconostasis from Cyprus. Marie was killed in 1938 trying to prevent her sons, Karol and Nicholas, from fighting a duel and her heart was buried in a casket in the chapel. When Balchik came under Bulgarian rule in 1940, the casket was returned to Romania. The town has two small museums on the Town Square, the History Museum, most of which is given over to Greek and Roman remains and the Ethnographic Museum.
East of Balchik on the coast is the Tuzlata spa, whose medicinal mud is scraped from the bottom of Balchik lake and is supposed to alleviate sciatica,lumbago and rheumatism. A campsite, Belyat Briag, is close by.
ALBENA (Албена)
Albena is one of the newer resorts on the Black Sea, intended to attract families (it is named after a young girl in a story by Iordan Iovkov - see Literature). Its distinctive pyramidal hotels are designed so that every room has a view of the sea and the 4 mile long beach from which the seabed shelves gently out for a distance of about 200m. It has a wide range of restaurants and nightclubs and is generally thought to be quieter than other resorts aimed at younger visitors. Close to Albena, on the main coastal road, the village of Obrochishte is the site of a ruined Dervish Monastery, the Arat Teke. Consisting of two seven-sided buildings, the tiurbe (literally `the tomb`) and the magernica, the kitchen in which meals were prepared for pilgrims and visitors. The tiurbe contains the tomb of a Turkish saint, Ak Azal Baba, with an opening near the head into which the pilgrim put their hands to be cured of any ailment. Others tied clothing to the tree east of the tiurbe, in the belief that by leaving their garments they were ridding themselves of their ills. The square vestibule has some fine frescoes and of note also is the marble decoration of the windows. After the last dervish left in the 19th century, a belief grew among the local population that the tomb was actually that of St. Athanasius, the protector of livestock, and the teke became a place of veneration for Christians. Every year on St. George`s day up to 5000 lambs were sacrificed, `Obrok` in Bulgarian, giving the village its name.
GOLDEN SANDS (Златни Пясуци - Zlatni Piasutsi)
Despite its rather tacky name, Golden Sands, Zlatni Piasutsi in Bulgarian (although most people will understand if you say Golden Sands) is actually quite a sophisticated resort. The biggest on the coast, most of its hotels have been recently upgraded and its nightlife is of the type that would be expensive elsewhere. Designed mainly for families, its sandy 4km. / 2.5 mile long beach is safe for children whose needs, from special menus to specialist activities, are well catered for elsewhere. Off the beach, between the resort’s hundred odd hotels there are numerous shopping centres and bazaars and many restaurants, the best of which are as good as anywhere in Bulgaria. Horse-drawn carriages and trains run along the seafront and bicycles can be hired cheaply. Regular buses run to Varna and further up the coast.
ALADZHA MONASTERY (Аладжа Манастир)
Aladzha Monastery lies 2 miles southwest of Golden Sands on a minor road off the main road (signposted – park by the Botanic Garden). It is a rare example of a rock-cut monastery. The cliff from which it was cut was inhabited by prehistoric man and tools have been found here. According to Strabo this was the home of pygmies. In the 5th and 6th centuries, hermits lived in the caves. The monastery was established in the 13th and 14th centuries by monks, heyschasts, who considered that silence and physical immobility were the best means of attaining unity with God. During the Turkish occupation Aladzha was looted several times and severely damaged by later marauders. An earthquake has also destroyed the southern end of the lower storey.
The monastery was on two levels, the lower floor consisting of a long corridor along which were the monks` cells. At the north end is a large chamber, the chapel, which was divided into two parts by an iconostasis. The frescoes here, now much damaged, gave the monastery its name, Aladzha in Turkish means `colourful`. Another chapel on the upper floor also has frescoes, not so much damaged, but also not as accomplished as those on the lower floor. A museum at the entrance is divided into sections, one on Aladzha itself and another on relics. The wooded area around the monastery inevitably is a place of many legends, foremost among them that of Rim Papa, its guardian, who awakes every year to ask whether the trees still grow and women still give birth. Only if the answer is `yes` will he go back to sleep. Aladzha can be reached by a short walk from Golden Sands or by bus 33 from Varna.
SV. KONSTANTIN and ELENA (Св. Константин и Елена)
Saint Konstantin and Elena, formerly known as Druzhba (Friendship) is the olest of the purpose-built resorts founded in 1908 as a centre for balneology It is a smaller and more tranquil resort, whose seafront is more a series of coves than one long beach. The resort’s hotels are mostly in the south of the resort, the north is given over to rest homes and private hotels, and it contains the coast’s most luxurious hotel, the 5-star Grand Hotel Varna with a wide range of sports facilities, a nightclub and a casino. The other hotels are often low-rise, set among the trees of the old forest that is the natural coverage of this area. The resort is named after a nearby monastery of which only the church remains.
VARNA (Варна)
Bulgaria`s third city, Varna was once a rather grim Ottoman garrison, traces of which can still be seen around the city. Today, however, it is a cosmopolitan port with wide and pleasant streets, a leafy park on the seafront and hosts one of the biggest of Bulgaria’s music festivals, the Varna Summer Music Weeks. It also is a good base from which to explore the northern reaches of the Black sea coast, all the towns mentioned above can be explored on a day-trip from the city, as can the quieter beaches south of Varna and the nature reserve at the mouth of the Kamchia river.
SOME HISTORY...
About 1200 BC, a Thracian tribe erected a village on oak piles in the lake of Varna, burying their dead in mounds which are still evident today. Six hundred years later, Greek settlers from Miletus in Asia Minor dislodged the Thracians and founded the town of Odessus, meaning `town on water`. The walled town soon achieved prosperity through trade with Thracian tribes and the Aegean ports. It fell to the Macedonians in the 4th century BC and later to the Romans in the 1st century AD. Under the Romans, Odessus and the four other Black Sea ports in what was known as the Euxine League were given considerable independence and Odessus became one of the greatest trading centres in this part of the Empire. The Romans fortified the town, built a water supply and many public buildings. After the dissolution of Empire in the 4th century, Odessus fell under Byzantine rule, while not losing any of its importance. Disaster struck, however, in the 5th century when the city was devastated by successive waves of Goths and Huns. Emperor Justinian rebuilt it in the 6th century, only to see it laid waste by the Avars in 586. About this time Slavs settled in the area and called the town by its present name. It is thought they called the river `Varna`, meaning `black one` and that this was transferred to the town.
The Bulgarians took the town in the 8th century, and in common with other Black Sea towns it changed hands several times in the next 500 years between the Bulgarians and Byzantium. Tsar Kaloyan captured it in 1201 for the final time and over the next 150 years it developed some of its former importance as a trading centre. In the middle of the 14th century, Balik captured it as part of his independent principality (see Balchik), only to lose it to the Turks in 1393. In 1444, King Ladislaus of Poland and Hungary launched a crusade against the Turks in the Balkans. He reached the outskirts of Varna and fell there in battle. During the later years of Ottoman domination Varna again became a thriving commercial centre, especially after the construction of the Varna-Ruse railway line (see Ruse) in the 19th century made the town an important staging post on the main trading route between Central Europe and Turkey. To the Turks it was also an important military base, its strategic importance underlined by Russia’s periodic attempts to capture it in the 18th and early 19th centuries. As the site of Bulgaria’s Naval Academy, the town retains its military presence today,
THE CITY
Pl. Nezavimost, south of the bus station, is the centre of the city and around it are the town’s theatre and opera house and the impressive Cathedral. The 2nd largest in Bulgaria, it was completed in 1886 and has an elaborate iconostasis and interesting frescoes. The area between the square and the seafront is the heart of the city’s social and commercial life. On summer evenings the maze of little streets around are full of crowds of strolling people some of whom spill out on to Primorski Park (also known as the Sea Garden), the long stretch of woodland that runs northward along the seafront. From Pl. Nezavimost, Ul. Kniaz Boris I, Varna`s main shopping street, leads eastward past a section of old Roman wall. At its end, Blvd. Slivnitsa leads down to the southern end of Primorski Park and the exquisitely groomed Municipal Beach. Near the entrance to the beach is the grand façade of the Planetarium (open Mon.-Fri.) and, a little further southwards, an aquarium specialising in Black Sea species. At the western end are two of Varna’s many museums, the Naval Museum which traces the history of seamanship on the Black Sea. The gunboat embedded in concrete outside is the Druzhki, victor in a skirmish with the Turkish cruiser Hamidie in 1912. Further east in the park there is a summer theatre which gives opera, ballet and folk-music performances in July and August and a children’s play park, Detksi Kut
Opposite the Naval Museum, across Blvd. Primorski, in what was once Varna`s first public hospital, the Medical Museum is devoted to a history of Bulgarian medical practice since medieval times, with some gruesome displays of surgical and dental instruments down the ages. A little way down Primorski are the excavated remains of one of the Roman town’s baths. Northward from the baths a little street leads past the City Historical Museum (Tue. - Sat.), concerned mostly with Varna`s more recent past, to the pretty little church of Sv. Atanas and, beside it, the remains of the Roman Thermae. The church is one of the oldest in the city, dating from 1838. On the balcony, once the women’s section, is a display of 19th century icons from the region.
More extensive than the baths on Primorski, the Thermae was built in the 2nd century. The floor plan of the building with its two entrances, one for men and one for women, is visible. From each entrance, corridors lead to two dressing rooms, from which heavy doors opened on to two cold pools and seven other warm or hot pools. Walls and floors were faced with marble and decorated with Corinthian columns and sculptured balustrades. From here Ul. Khan Krum leads back to the centre past two more churches, the sunken church of Sv. Bogoroditsa and the small Armenian Church, with its distinctive icons and outside a small memorial to the Turkish atrocities in Armenia in 1915. Khan Krum joins Pl. Exarch Iosif, and just north of here is the National Revival Museum, a former church and site of Varna's first Bulgarian school dating from the 1860`s. The classroom for boys on the ground floor is faithfully reproduced and above, in the former girls` classroom a display of photographs from 19th century Varna, including one of British and French troops in the town on the way to the Crimean War. Northward from here is the town’s biggest museum, the Archaeological Museum with a comprehensive display of Bulgarian, Thracian and Greek artefacts, jewellery, sculpture, weaponry and ecclesiastical art. The most impressive part of the display, however, is given over to gold jewellery dating from 4000 BC and found in a tomb near the town. Given the age of the find, the intricate detail of some of the gold pieces is astonishing, especially the lifelike representations of animals some of which seem to jump from the metal. A little further down the town’s one other museum, the Ethnographic Museum on Ul. Panagiurishte houses a fine display of folk costumes and tools from the region’s traditional occupations.
Some 2 klms. from the city towards Sv Konstanin and Elena (Bus 31a from the bus station) is the Euxinograd Residence, a former palace of the Bulgarian kings. Built in 1887 on the site of a former monastery, Sv. Dimitur, the building modelled on a French chateau and the elaborate botanical gardens which stretch to the seafront are open to the public. The remains of a Byzantine fort, Kastritisi, make a worthwhile diversion to the northern end of the park. Kastritsi was in use from its construction in the 6th century until it was sacked by Ottoman forces in the 14 th c.
AROUND VARNA
Kamchia Nature Reserve, the mouth of the River Kamchia, lies about 25kms. south of Varna on a minor road off the main coastal route to Burgas near the village of Bliznatsi (signposted). This area of marshy forest, known also as the Longoza, is rich in birdlife and is home to wild pigs. Boat trips up and down the coast go from the estuary during the summer. Just north of the reserve is a hotel and villa complex, with camping nearby, although by the earliest of five buses a day from Varna it is also a feasible day-trip.
The Stone Forest (Побитите Камъни – Pobitite Kamani), 18kms. west of Varna is a geological curiosity, an area of standing stones some up to 7m. high. Their formation 50 million years ago had nothing to do with trees but was actually a process similar to the formation of stalagmites. There are two major groups of stones, the Dikilitash, accessible by car on route 2 out of Varna (signposted after the turnoff for Slunchevo) and the Strashimirovska Group can be reached by train to Beloslav, a village on the shores of Lake Varna and then a short walk back to Strashimirovo and uphill from there. There are other smaller groups near Slunchevo and north of Beloslav.
SUNNY BEACH (Слънчев Бряг)
Sunny Beach, known in Bulgarian as Slunchev Briag, is the southernmost and largest of the coast’s four purpose built resorts. It is very much for younger travellers, with a thrumming nightlife, though families are also catered for, with an abundance of beach hotels with kids clubs and activities such as mini golf, playgrounds and beach activities such as volleyball, jet skiing and paragliding. It has 6 kms. of beach, a promenade with restaurants, bars and shops and is close to one of the jewels of the Black Sea coast, the old town of Nesebur. The beach is well patrolled by lifeguards, with shallow, warm water. The hotels, beach and holiday villages and Sunny Beach`s many restaurants and nightclubs are connected by a series of roads that are barred to traffic. For the footsore though, horse-drawn carts and mini-trains do regular journeys around the complex. The Solar Summer Festival in August is a major house and electronic music festival. Regular buses go to Nesebur and Burgas and boats ply up and down the coast from the beach. Numerous bus excursions go as far afield as Veliko Turnovo .
NESEBUR (Несебър)
Nesebur is one of the oldest and arguably the most picturesque of Bulgaria`s coastal towns. Sited on a narrow peninsula connected to the mainland by a 400m long causeway, its long history of Thracian, Greek, Roman and Bulgarian occupation is apparent in the abundance of well-preserved buildings, churches and other remains that line its narrow streets. Established by the Thracians in the 2nd millenium BC, on an easily defensible site, its Thracian name was Menambria or `Mena`s town` named after a Thracian nobleman. Around 510 BC the town was colonised by the Greeks who fortified the peninsula and built a town hall, a theatre, a gymnasium and temples to Apollo, Dionysus and Zeus. Its geographical position on the trade route from Istanbul to the Danube and the security its fortifications provided ensured that it became an important commercial centre, its prosperity based on ship building, trade and fishing. Examples of pottery and bricks from Mesembria as the Greeks renamed the town have been found up and down the Black Sea Coast and its inhabitants also minted their own coinage. The town`s prosperity continued, marred only by periodic trade wars with the neighbouring Greek city-states of Apollonia (Sozopol) and Ankhialo (Pomorie), until the 1st century BC when all three united to fight off an invasion by the Romans. In 72 BC, however, they fell to the legions of Marcus Lucullus and there began a period of decline as a minor port in the Roman province of the Thrace.
After 330 AD when the Empire split in to two halves, Nesebur began to resume some of its former importance as a strategic, commercial and religious centre of the eastern Roman empire, Byzantium. During the 5th and 6th centuries it became a place of exile for high ranking church and military officials and contemporary chroniclers describe it as densely populated with a thriving cultural and economic life. During this period a new fortress wall was built, to repel incursions by barbarian tribes, as were a number of churches and other public buildings and the pattern of narrow streets which is the town today was established. After the formation of the Bulgarian state in 681, Byzantium determined to hold on to Nesebur as a base from which to attack the new country. However, as Bulgarian military power grew, even the mighty Byzantine Empire could not contain Khan Krum`s imperial ambition and the town finally fell to him in 812. He gave it its present name, Nesebur. Over the next century, control of the town passed alternatively between Bulgaria and Byzantium, but by the middle of the 10th century the Bulgarians had finally regained what was to become their principal sea port. During the reign of Tsar Ivan Alexander (1331-1371), the `Silver Age` of the Second Kingdom, it reached the zenith of its commercial influence, exporting agricultural goods and importing gold, silver and arms from as far afield as Venice, Genoa and Dubrovnik. As befits a major port, its population was cosmopolitan, with Greeks, Italians, Bulgarians and Jews all occupying different quarters.
All this was brought to an abrupt end by a prolonged siege of the town in 1366 by the crusaders of Amadeus of Savoy, who, having taken the town, sold it later in the year to Byzantium for 15000 gold pieces. Nesebur recovered some of its commercial importance in the next century but again the town was devastated in 1453 by the Ottoman army of Karadya Bey. The Turks, recognising the strategic importance of the walled fortress, used it as a naval base but it was never to recover its commercial role and gradually declined to the insignificant fishing village it had become at the beginning of the 19th century. It did, however, remain the seat of a Greek Bishopric during the Turkish occupation and thus escaped the wholesale destruction that befell most other Bulgarian towns.
From the eighteenth century on many of the houses of the town were rebuilt in Bulgarian National Revival period style, a stone ground floor used as a store or shop and a wooden first floor overhanging the street.
THE FORTIFICATIONS
Not much remains of the old encircling wall, predictably once its defensive role had gone in the 17th century much of it was used for building material, but what does remain, however, shows how substantial both in height and girth the defensive system was, underlining the importance of the town to its various conquerors. The first view of the town from the causeway is of the major remaining portion of the fortifications. On the northern side of the causeway is of the Greek fortress walls, dating from the 5th to the 3rd century BC with two gate towers. On the southern side are the remains of the Byzantine fortifications, from the 5th to the 6th century AD, with its distinctive layers of brick and stone and brick entrance arches. Further round the southern side of the peninsula by the harbour is a portion of Greek wall dating from the 5th century BC. On the northern side are portions of the Thracian wall with oval shaped bends typical of Thracian design.
CHURCHES
Climbing up from the causeway on Ul. Messambria the first of Nesebur`s 11 churches to be encountered is the Church of Christ the Pantocrator (13-14th c.). It is a good example of early Bulgarian church architecture, showing strong Byzantine influence, constructed in layers of dressed stone and brick in a series of blind arches and decorated with green ceramic plaques. Inside above the apses are friezes decorated with saucers, flowers and swastikas - then a symbol of the sun - and traces of murals. Under the floor of the narthex is a medieval tomb and above that a more recent belfry. Nearby on Ul. Metropolitska is the Church of St. John the Baptist (10-11th c.) built of undressed stone and now an art gallery. It is of a transitional type between the early Christian basilica and the medieval cruciform church. Some frescoes have survived, particularly on the south wall a portrait of a 14th century donor and on the south-eastern column a depiction of St. Marina. Above the southern entrance of Sveti Spas (17th c.) on Ul. Aheloi is a commemorative plaque of 1609 to Bishop Nesebur Kipriani. Built under Ottoman rule the church is of necessity low and small, compensated for inside by richly decorated frescoes depicting scenes from the gospel, various saints and, in the apse, the Virgin Mary. Also in the church is the tomb of a Byzantine princess, Mataissa Cantacuzina, buried in 1441 in the Old Metropolitan church but later reburied here. Close by are two 13th century churches, that of the Archangels Michael and Gabriel and Sveti Paraskeva, both similar in construction to the Church of Christ the Pantocrator. At the old centre of the town is the oldest church, the 6th century Old Metropolitan or Church of Saint Sofia. This impressive three aisled basilica, with a three part narthex and semicircular apse, was Nesebur`s principal church until the 15th century and the residence of the bishop. The floor was originally covered with mosaic and the recess for the bishop`s throne can still be seen under the arch of the apse. The Church of Sveti Kliment on Ul. Messambria dates from the 17th century and is similar to the Sveti Spas church. On Ul. Mena stands the New Metropolitan or church of Saint Stephen, an 11th century three aisled basilica, added to in the 16th c. when the naos was elongated and in the 17th century when a narthex was constructed. An inscription relates that the money for the first rebuilding was provided by Christopher, Bishop of Nesebur. Sometime in the 15th century this took the place of the Old Metropolitan as the town’s principal church as the rich panorama of frescoes inside testify. The oldest of the 258 murals date from the 14th century, but the most impressive from the 16th century. The latter are heavily influenced by the style of the school of Mount Athos in Greece, the centre of Orthodox Church art during the Turkish occupation; although because of its isolation Bulgarian icon painting lost a lot of the rigid convention of its Greek counterpart. The frescoes in Saint Stephen’s show a realism comparable to that of the Boyana church in Sofia and legend has it, as in Boyana, that the faces of the religious figures are taken from contemporary residents of Nesebur. Other features to note are the decoration on the bases of the marble columns, taken from a pagan temple, and the fine 18th century Bishop’s throne. Just above the harbour is the ruined Church of St. John Aliturgetos (14th c.), severely damaged by an earthquake in 1913. Aliturgetos means Unconsecrated and legend has it that as one of the church builders was killed on the site, the priest would not allow it to be used for worship. The church is a good example of the Bulgarian style of the period and it is worth noting the white limestone blocks, the patterns the masons created in stone and brick and the carving on keystones and in the drum of the dome of animals and birds in heraldic posture.
Other points of interest in the town are the Archaeological Museum at the bottom of Ul. Messambria which has a permanent exhibition of mostly Greek and Thracian artefacts and the Maskoyani Museum-House, a National Revival period house, also on Messambria near the eastern end of the peninsula which also functions as an Ethnographic Museum.
PRACTICALITIES
Most accommodation in the town is in the modern area of Nesebur, on the mainland side of the causeway, consisting mostly of newer hotels of which there is no lack of choice, although at the height of the summer season many are booked up by parties. There is a limited number of hotels on the peninsula and private rooms, but all have to be booked early. The bus station is at the end of the causeway by the old city gates, from where there are regular buses to Sunny Beach and Burgas.
POMORIE (Поморие)
On the road between Nesebur and Burgas is Nesebur`s once rival port, again built on a peninsula, Pomorie. Old Pomorie was probably as picturesque as Nesebur is today but only a small portion remains, the Old Town (Staria Grad) the rest having been destroyed by a fire in 1906. The town was largely rebuilt in concrete, although the area around the harbour is pleasant and there are some clean and under-populated beaches close to the Europa campsite on the Burgas road. Pomorie`s other attraction is also here, a domed Thracian Tomb (closed Sundays), known locally as the Hollow Mound, built between 200 and 400AD. An arched corridor leads to an unusual domed chamber with side niches for funerary urns supported by one hollowed column. The town today supports itself on fishing, market-gardening and the ancient industry of salt extraction (the Greek name for the town `Ankhialo` means `beside the salt`) from Pomorski lake.
BURGAS (Бургас)
Burgas is Bulgaria`s second largest port, with a correspondingly bustling commercial centre awash in summer with a colourful mixture of people. Day-trip visitors from nearby resorts mingle with sailors from many countries and, last but not least, the locals who through generations of contact with the many different nationalities that have traded here down the centuries, exhibit almost as many different national characteristics as the visitors. Burgas, it should be said, is not a pretty town in the manner of its neighbours, Nesebur and Sozopol, having been substantially rebuilt in the last hundred years, but, architecturally, the centre of the town has an austere charm and whatever other deficiencies it may possess are made up for by the hustle and bustle of its street life and its shops.
The bus and railway stations are adjacent on Pl. Tsaritsa Ioanna, south of the town centre by the entrance to the port. Across a little ornamental garden from the bus terminal, Ul. Alexandrovska leads to the town square, Pl. Troykata, dominated by the bulk of the modern Hotel Bulgaria. On the edge of the square is the Sv. Kiril and Metodius church known for the striking stained-glass windows over its main entrance. A little further down , the Ethnographic Museum explores Bulgarian folk culture and has displays of Kukeri costumes, with colourful costumes and everyday items. Opposite Ul. Lermontov takes you to the Historical Museum and the Natural History Museum with a display of bird-life. After the square Alexandrovska becomes a pleasant tree-lined shopping street ending at another larger square bordered on one side by the university and a line of market stalls.
The town lies in a natural harbour, used by the Thracians, the Greeks and the Romans (its name comes from the Latin word `Burg` meaning `tower`, two of which were built to defend the town in Roman times) remains of whose occupancy are displayed in the archaeological museum, once the synagogue, on Blvd. Bogoridi (down Lermontov from the Historical Museum). Bogoridi is a pleasant cafe-lined street with some interesting old houses and the centre of the evening promenade. It leads to the beach and the Sea Gardens which stretch northward for the length of the town giving some superb views of the Black Sea. An Art Gallery with a permanent display of Bulgarian art lies a block south of the Archaeological Museum. At the town square end of Bogoridi is the modern but attractive little Armenian church of Sveti Hach, built by and for Burgas` small population of expatriate Armenians.
A pleasant way to spend a day is a boat trip to Sv. Anastasia Island. Boats go to the island from the Magazia 1 Sea Centre (by the ferry pier terminal at the end of Ul. Kniaz Alexander Battenburg behind Pl. Ionna) The island is named after a medieval monastery, established there in the 15 th c. which lasted until 1923 when the island was made a prison housing Communist insurgents. The monastery was sacked a number of times over the centuries by pirates. Today the church
SOZOPOL (Созопол)
Sozopol is the southernmost of the three peninsular Black Sea ports, adjacent to three islands, Sveti Kiril, to which it is connected by a causeway, Sveti Ivan, the largest island on the Black Sea coast whose lighthouse marks the entrance to the Bay of Burgas and close by the smaller island of Sveti Peter. Although Sozopol has much of Nesebur`s architectural interest and charm it is, however, not so much visited and at the height of the summer season it can be a much more tranquil option than Nesebur. For many years it was the favourite summer resort of Bulgaria’s artistic and literary set and, although less so now, it still retains something of the cultured air of a town that reserves itself for the more discerning visitor. As in Nesebur, developments of modern hotels, villas and shopping areas have grown up in the area surrounding the peninsula.
The oldest of the Black Sea settlements established by the Greeks, the town was founded in 610 BC by settlers from Miletus in Asia Minor led by the philosopher Anaximander. Attracted by a site that lay on a number of important sea routes and was easy to defend from Thracian tribes, they first settled on the island of Sveti Kiril and later as the town grew in importance on the peninsula itself. The Greeks named it Apollonia, and a temple dedicated to the god was erected on Sveti Kiril, embellished with a forty foot (12 metre) high bronze statue of Apollo (the work of the sculptor Calamis, a disciple of Phidias). In its heyday, Herodotus compared its glories favourably with those of Athens and Miletus and the wealth of gold, silver and pottery artefacts discovered in the area testify to the town’s commercial and political importance. The Romans captured and destroyed Apollonia in 72 BC, carting off the statue of Apollo to Rome, and little more is recorded of the town until the 4th century AD when the first mention was made of its modern name, Sozopol, meaning `town of salvation` although it is not clear whether it is derived from Apollo, the god of healing, or the calm bay, a haven for shipwrecked sailors. During the First Kingdom Sozopol regained some of its former glory, Byzantine chroniclers described it as `large and populous` and full of `all manner of riches`. In the 9th century the Bulgarians captured the town for the first time but, like many coastal towns, it changed hands quite a few times during the next century, alternating between Bulgarian and Byzantine control. It was finally taken by the Bulgarians, under whom it flourished, until it was captured and plundered by the Genoese in 1353. Under the Turks, who seized the town 100 years later, it lost any commercial significance and became a minor fishing port. During the Crimean War, the British and the French built a naval base on Sveti Kiril, which the Bulgarian navy use today.
The main road and bus route (every hour) from Burgas leads into Pl. Khan Krum, a little square containing the bus station, a small market and a park between the old town on the peninsula and the new town on the hillside above it. From here, a road leads northward to the harbour and the causeway to Sveti Kiril past the modern Archaeological Museum (open all week during the season). It contains an extensive display of Greek and Thracian artefacts, including many Greek amphorae and Thracian weapons. On the other side of the square, the park, with two small churches, a little chapel to the patron saint of seafarers, Sv. Zosim opposite the bus station and by the entrance to the peninsula the larger church of Sv. Kiril i Metodius, leads on to a small beach. From the square, Ul. Apolonia with its overhanging balconies leads to the centre of the peninsula and the wealth of wooden houses that are Sozopol’s main attraction, with a scattering of little chapels, some to local saints. Half way up the street stands a fragment of the ancient city, the arch of Apollonia. An art gallery, once the local school, stands on the point of the peninsula with an exhibition of paintings by local artists. The town has two adjacent beaches, the extensive Piasachni diuni to the north and a smaller municipal beach to the south. Boats go to Sv. Ivan island from Sozopol bay (the pier behind the Archaeological Museum) and also to and from Pomorie, Nesebur and Burgas . Ravadinovo Castle (near the village of the same name some 2kms. south of the town) is a curiosity, a copy of a Central European castle built 20 years ago set in gardens with a small lake. South of Sozopol, the Ropotamo River Nature Reserve, served by a regular bus service and being only 30km. south of Burgas is a feasible day-trip. A wooded area around the mouth of the river Ropotamo, it is rich in wildflowers and birdlife which can be viewed lazily from a hired rowboat.
The coast south of Sozopol is generally quieter than further north, a string of small towns leading down to the Turkish border. With the exception of the Diuni Holiday Village just south of Sozopol, its beaches and coves are emptier and mostly visited by Bulgarians. The first of these going south is Primorsko, much favoured by Bulgarians in summer, with pretty north and south of the town. A pleasant, if at times bracing walk, is to Beglik Tash (Беглик Таш), a Thracian rock sanctuary dating to the 13 th c. BCE. It is a circular natural rock formation with man made additions, a rock sun-clock and altars, and carvings. Take the road going north from northern beach for about a kilometre and a half until a side road, marked with a blue sign, takes you to the path to the complex. From the monument a path takes you on to Beglik Tash point. To the south, the villages of Kiten and Lozenets are small resorts with beaches on either side of a promontory. The next town, Tsarevo, is a slightly larger resort which is also an excellent base from which to explore the Strandzha mountains. The Strandzha is a range that extends from the Turkish border westward for some 60 klms and almost all the range is a National Park. With many Thracian sites, it has a distinctive folk culture, dialect and architecture of wooden houses and its inhabitants are famous for their nestinarstvo ceremony, barefoot walking through fire. It is exceptionally rich in flora and fauna. From Tsarevo, a road goes west up into the mountains through isolated villages. Just before the village of Bulgari, a road takes a marked left to the Silkosia nature reserve, an excellent place to explore the region’s unique flora. After Bulgari, the road leads to Malko Turnovo, the region’s administrative capital and an ancient Thracian site with many remains including tombs and fortress walls around the town.
Of the final two towns on the coast, Ahtopol is the more developed resort, with unusually, a Museum of Anchors, while Sinomorets offers fine walking along a largely undeveloped coast towards the Turkish border. Between the two is the Veleka Nature Reserve.