Golden Sands

The resort is the largest one on the Northern Black Sea coast (more than 1,800 hectares). 17 kilometers from Varna, Golden Sands is a magnificent resort with richly wooded hills, a white golden beach and clear blue sea. There are a lot of very famous and ancient mineral water springs. The resort is situated in the area of a Bulgarian National park. The resort’s beach strip is 3.5 km. long and up to 100m wide. The average air temperature in summer is 27-30 degrees and the water temperature is 25-28 degrees. Golden Sands suits both sun-worshippers and sightseers. It’s proximity to Varna, the third largest town of Bulgaria, provides a great number of places of interest.

North of the resort is the village of Kranevo and south is Chaika holiday village. Golden Sands merges with the St. Konstantin and St. Elena resort and the Riviera resort. The area is famous for the purest sand on the Black Sea coast.

St Konstantin

St. Konstantin one of the first purpose-built Black Sea resorts in Bulgaria. It has an ancient history, exotic character and modernity all in the midst of a natural park with a beach strip around 5 km long and 20-30 m wide covered with fine golden sand. The construction of St. Konstantin began in 1908 in the vicinity of the St. Konstantin and St. Elena monastery with the first holiday house visited by Czechs, Poles and Germans.

There are about 50 hotels in the resort, offering accommodation, swimming pools, lobby - bars, confectioneries, restaurants, fitness halls and other additional facilities.

Riviera

The Riviera Holiday Club is located amid a natural park of centuries-old trees at the water's edge and on a beautiful beach.

The former governmental residence nowadays offers 828 beds in 6 hotels of different categories. Riviera Holiday Club is a renowned exclusive centre of business tourism, where all the requirements for the implementation of conventions and business meetings can be satisfied.

Albena

Albena is situated on the Black Sea Coast, offering a variety of amenities, sports and recreational facilities, numerous entertainment spots, bars and discos, and spa facilities.

Albena offers a total of 14 900 beds in 43 hotels (2-4 stars). They are located right on the beach or on the nearby hill with breathtaking sea and forest views. During recent years the hotels of “Kaliakra”, “Dobrotitsa”, “Dorostor”, “Drujba”, “Orlov”, “Boryana”, “Nona”, “Elitsa”, “Mura”, “Slavuna”, “Gergana”, “Panorama”, “Compass”, “Leipzig”, “Laguna Mare”, “Laguna Garden”, “Laguna Beach”, “Malibu” and “Kaliopa” have been reconstructed and totally renovated. Since 1998 the hotels “Gergana”, “Slavuna” and “Mura” have been functioning firstly according to the standards of Iberotel, and from 1999 as RIU hotels.

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Varna

Varna is Bulgaria's third largest city. It was an inhabited place even before the Greeks established the colony of Odessos there about 580 B.C. Later, under the Romans and their successors, the Slavs, Varna became a major port trading with Constantinople, Venice and Dubrovnik. The name of the town (Odessos - a settlement on water) is not Greek but of an earlier linguistic origin, which suggests the presence of an older village on the same territory.

Successor to ancient civilisations, survivor of the transformations of time, the present-day city of Varna is one of the most attractive Bulgarian towns. It is referred to as “the Pearl of the Bulgarian Black Sea Coast”, with good reason.

The city of Varna, with it’s population of 325,137, is situated on the Bay of Varna, 470 km east of Sofia. Varna is the biggest city on the Bulgarian Black Sea coast. Varna’s length is over 11 km, its width, including the new residential district in nearly 9km. The city stands in tiers and follows the curves of the Bay of Varna.

Varna the main port for both naval and commercial shipping and as it is near the coastal resorts of Golden Sands, St. Konstantin (Drouzhba) and Albena, it has a cosmopolitan atmosphere. Sailors on shore-leave in unfamiliar ceremonial uniforms, mingle with foreign tourists and locals as they promenade along the boulevards, lined by dignified 19th and early 20th century buildings.

The city is surrounded by numerous gardens, vineyards and deciduous groves. Almost the whole territory is occupied with private country houses and small farms that belong to them. About 20 kilometres west of Varna is the so-called Stone Forest (Pobitite Kamani) a curious collection of stone columns up to 7 metres high. The first impression is of a ruined temple but scientists have discovered that it is a geological formation of stalagmites some fifty million years old.

Bourgas

The city is a starting point for visiting the seaside resorts in the area, with the Sunny Beach resort and Elenite holiday village to the north and Duni holiday village, renowned for its unique architectural composition, to the south. The port of Bourgas is the biggest Bulgarian sea port.

Bourgas is more than two thousand years old. It was founded as a Roman settlement under the name of Kulata. The first books about its history are found with the Byzantian poet Manuel Phill (13th c). Later additional data was provided by the Turkish historian Hadji Kalfa (17th c). He gave the town two different names, Bourgos and Pirgos. In the Turkish register from 1676 the settlement was entered as a town for the first time, and later in another document from 1730 - as the port of Bourgas. Burnt down in the 19th century, it was brought back to life again and turned into an important administrative, economic and cultural centre of Bulgaria

Today Bourgas is the fourth largest city in Bulgaria.The climate here is temperately continental with a distinct impact from the Black Sea. A Duty Free Zone was established in 1989 with the objective of creating most attractive conditions for foreign investors. The favourable geographical location and advanced transport infrastructure of Bourgas are good prerequisites for development of tourism and trade. What most attracts people here is undoubtedly the sea.

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Sunny Beach

Sunny Beach is the biggest resort in Bulgaria, with the longest and widest beach strip, with hotels spread along the beach and among the dunes. The resort is situated in the southern part of the Bulgarian Black Sea coast, stretching along a beautiful bay facing east. Sunny Beach is closed to the north by the descending ridges of the Balkan Range, thus blending sea and mountain in perfect harmony.

Sveti Vlas

Sveti Vlas is 10 km. from Nessebur, a town of world historic significance and 40 km. from the town of Bourgas. The unique combination of sea, mountains and Mediterranean climate makes Sveti Vlas an ideal resort.

Sveti Vlas was founded by the Thracian tribe called larisi in the 2nd Century AD. In the 14th Century, it adopted the name, ‘Sveti Vlas,’ after the patron saint of cattle merchants. There have been five monasteries around the village. Its numerous private hotels offer a variety of styles and first class service and make the small village preffered tourist destination.

Nessebur

Nessebur is one of the oldest towns in Europe. It is the successor of the ancient Thracian settlement called Messembria founded in the 2nd century AD. After 510 AD Dorian settlers turned it into a Greek colony. There was a theatre and a temple of the Greek God Apollo in it. Brass and silver money was coined there and, in the third century AD, golden coins were made.

Nowadays Nessebur, with its unique ancient atmosphere provides excellent opportunities for both recreation and sight-seeing. The accommodation is centralised in well-equipped family hotels and private lodgings, offering the convenience necessary for real recreation. The numerous restaurants and nightclubs in the area cater for all tastes.

Nessebur is on the UNESCO World Heritage List for its unique colour and architecture. The town is a real museum showing the building traditions in Bulgaria with over 20 places of interest. Valuable monuments from all ages of its thousand-year old existence have been preserved there.

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Pomorie

The town of Pomorie is situated on a narrow rocky peninsula, jutting out 3.5 km into the Black Sea, 20 km away from Bourgas.

Pomorie is famous for its mud therapy. It is proven that according to its qualities Pomorie curative mud, extracted from the salty lake, is among the best in the world. The fine sand of the beaches, both gold and black (curative and rich in iron), the warm and clear seawater and the great number of sunny days, makes Pomorie an attractive place for tourists from all over the world. Thanks to its preserved nature and ecological conditions, the town was awarded the Blue Flag Award. Among the most interesting places of interest in Pomorie are the Ancient Dome Tomb from the epoch of the late Roman dominance on these lands (2nd and 3rd century), the functioning monastery ''St George'', the little church ''Christ Transfiguration' ' from 1764 and the church ''Virgin Mary''.

Primorsko

The town of Primorsko is a climate resort and a centre for youth tourism. It is situated 6 km north of the village of Kiten, 52 km south of Bourgas and 422 km south-east of Sofia. Primorsko is famous for its graceful 10km long sandy beach, the longest and prettiest on the coast.

This resort is known as a place which is preferred by young Bulgarians who come here and stay in the numerous, hostels, student dorms and campgrounds. Here is the so called 'International Youth Resort Centre (MMC)' which still attracts thousands of young people.

In 1998 Primorsko was awarded the prestigeous Blue Flag by the Foundation for Environmental Education in Europe, recognition of the purity of the nature in its region. The River Ropotamo is in the vicinity of Primorsko. The Ropotamo is one of the largest natural reserves of Bulgaria. This reserve is world famous for its rare birds and plants, that can be found only here.

Sozopol

Sozopol is one of the oldest towns on the Bulgarian Black Sea Coast and dates from 2,610 years ago. It is situated upon a picturesque peninsula. The archaeological findings testify to the presence of the Thracians as its first inhabitants. In 620 B.C. immigrants from the rich city of Milet, the largest Southern Greek centre on the Asia Minor coast, turned the old Thracian settlement into a rich Hellenic colony, the independent city-state Apollonia-Pontica.

Sozopol was especially renowned in antiquity for the temple of Apollo the Healer, whose bronze statue, 13 m high, was a work of the Athenian sculptor Calamis. In 72 B.C. the punitive march of the Roman legions of Marcus Luculus against Apollonia, which was an ally to Mitridat ?V against Rome, completely destroyed the town's fortress wall, Apollo's temple and many other buildings. Only as late as the beginning of the 4th century, with the great political and ethnic changes in the Roman empire and the growth of Constantinople in its eastern part did Apollonia regain its former significance. This is the source of the town's new name, Sozopolis, the town of salvation. Sozopol resisted the barbarian invasions in the period from the 3rd to the 7th century A.D. It was annexed to Bulgaria's territory in 812 by Khan Kroum, and after that was continually conquered by Byzantium and regained from it (972-1366). In the 13th century it was an important harbour centre, a mediator in international commerce, an episcopal and metropolitan seat. The monastery "Sveti Yoan Predtecha" (St. John the Forerunner) on the Sveti Ivan isle was a spiritual and literary centre not only on a local and national, but also on an international level.

After the fall of Sozopol under Ottoman oppression in 1453 it gradually declined and turned into a poor fishermen's and wine-producers' settlement. It recovered in the years before the National Liberation in 1878 and especially after that because of the exclusive hardiness and vitality of its population.

Today this charming sea town is a popular tourist resort best known for its casual ambience, two sandy beaches, and distinctive nineteenth-century stone and wooden houses.

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