Bulgaria – Black Sea Coast

Bulgaria has a unique geographical position. It is situated in the remote southeast corner of Europe – the Balkan Peninsula. The territory of the country is comparatively small – only 111.000sq m yet it is the crossing point of three bio-geographical regions. These are the Middle European forest, the Eurasia steppe and the Mediterranean lands. The geographical position of the country, as well as the great variety of relief and landscapes – vast lowlands and steppes, rivers and lakes, valleys and woods, hills and mountains, descending to the waters of the Black Sea – is a guarantee for multifarious having its own atmosphere and unique charm.
Proud of its unique heritage, Bulgaria is a splendid combination of wonderful nature, interesting history and matchless culture. This is the land of sunny mountains, clear waters, unique folk music and crafts. The modern beach resorts, situated on the golden sands of the Black Sea offer the visitors nature beauty, ancient history and modern architecture. In winter you will spend unforgettable time skiing or snowboarding in Bansko, Borovets, Pamporovo and many other mountain resorts. Mountain ranges offer unique views. Fragrant woods, volcanic rocky formation, dramatic canyons and a great number of caves contribute for the magnificent panorama. The peoples that inhabited the Bulgarian lands in different periods created our rich history and culture. Folklore tradition is living in the villages and the Bulgarian songs and dances are the only one of their kind. The Orthodox monasteries with their churches with mural paintings are places for pilgrimage and refinement. Bulgaria is becoming a leading world destination for tourist travels all year long because the country is unforgettable in every single season.
For decades the Black Sea Coast has rightfully been the most popular, the most preferred and the most visited Bulgarian destination, owing to the remarkable qualities of the region: 380 km of beaches, 240-300 hours of sunshine in the summer season, average daily temperature of the air 23-25 C and of the water 23-25 C, 70-75% atmospheric humidity, varied relief, uncountable cultural and historical sights, resorts for any taste and pocket…

North Black Sea

Rousalka

The Bulgarian traditions in respect to the hospitality industry developed in the Black Sea resort areas unveiled incredible sea resorts compatible at world level. The national Black Sea resorts attract holidaymakers and tourists with recreation and rest adequate to the requirements and expectations of present day tourists through a great combination of their natural beauties, well-preserved and up-to-date architecture, tourist attraction and entertainments, good service and compatible prices.
Rousalka Holiday Village is one of the most attractive sea resorts for seaside recreational tourism. Nestling in a picturesque natural and historical reserve area – the Birds Bay, in the thick of a venerable oak wood, 20 km northeast of the city of Kavarna, Rousalka Holiday Village offers an unforgettable vacation in ecologically pure surroundings letting you escape from the mass tourist flow. Rousalka Holiday Village is the perfect blend of unspoilt nature and original architecture. Rocky coast and a nice sandy beach… Small cottages built in clusters, one next to the other or one above the other… Hot mineral water and perfect accommodation services… The club village was built in the mid 1970’s in partnership with the French company Club Mediterrane. Sport and recreational facilities available to guests: 600 self-contained two-beds bungalows scattered along the beach area, some of which are interlinked, making them particularly suitable for large families; well-designed and furnished, equipped with TV, air conditioning and telephone facilities; all day kindergarten and sports and animation services for the children; open area bar; mini bar and baby-club; boutiques; secretary and administrative services; rental car services; water sport activities and horseback riding in a modern horse riding club; tennis courts; fitness equipment and sauna, mini-football, volleyball, basketball and archery; jogging area; swimming pool area for families and small kids; curative mineral water showers in the former location of old Roman thermal baths; wonderful beach areas, exotic caves and curative spa. If you are lucky enough you may have the chance to watch the dance of the dolphins playing not too far away from the seacoast. The underwater divers’ club became an integral part of the Rousalka Holiday Village in 1998 – a member club in both the World Sub aquatics Federation and the Bulgarian Association of Submarine Activities.

Albena

The Albena seaside resort with its 5 km long beach lies in a picturesque bay only 32 km away from Varna and 502 km northeast of the city of Sofia.
The rare combination of fine golden sand, fresh air, crystal clear sea and mineral water, medicinal herbs, various natural products and perfectly organized Medical and Spa Centre make Albena a perfect location for family holidays and a most preferred tourist resort area both locally and in Europe.
One of the most marvelous resort on the Black Sea Coast with a good location, ideal for high quality accommodation and with variety of amenities, Albena is the place where the sea meets the sand. Hotels right on the beach – Albena offers a total of 14.900 beds in 43 hotels. They are located right on the beach or on the nearby hill with breathtaking sea and forest views. The hotels of Albena provide various services, such as 20 international TV programs, paid TV channel, a radio studio, phone card telephone facilities, information about transport timetables and air/sea temperatures, the opening and closing hours of shops, restaurants, entertainment clubs, advance booking for excursions, restaurants, taxis, laundry and medical assistance, rental car services and convention halls, internet rooms and medical care. Most of the hotels have a terrace line structure with well-projected storeys. The concept behind this architecture is to get more sun in summer days.
The resort offers great opportunities for housing tourist and holidaymakers. The area hosts 8 football fields; 17 tennis courts; 25 swimming pools with mineral water; 12-alley bowling halls; 9 beach volleyball grounds; a modern horse riding club; a modern multifunctional sports hall, where 11 different sports can be exercised at one and the same time. Albena has excellent off-season sports and recreational programs, which are very competitive to the sport ground properties in the foreign resort areas at the level of Antalya, Cyprus and Western Europe.

Golden Sands

The Golden Sands resort is located 17 km from the city of Varna, in the north part of the Bulgarian Black Sea Riviera. It is a unique combination of a calm and warm sea, wooded slopes descending to a beach covered with fine golden sand after which the resort area is named. All these natural conditions and the mineral springs favors bathing and basking, jet sports, surfing, water skiing and many other water sports.
The small bay areas scattered in this resort welcome children and amateur swimmers. The gems of the resort are the curative mineral spring waters and all holidaymakers may combine their holidays with healthcare programs – year-round spa treatment offering a wide range of services and programs.
Golden Sands resort area is developing every single minute and you may notice the new tourist properties rising every year that attract holidaymakers and tourist with the luxury and comfort typical for the world famous resort hotels. Every hotel is equipped with restaurants, fitness halls and offers lots of services and conveniences.
Restaurants serve Bulgarian, European and exotic cuisine, as well as superb, world-famous Bulgarian wines. Night time entertainment is also well developed: night clubs, discotheques, attractive folklore programs and exciting floor shows, casino and roulette tables. To keep you fit – sport facilities in the dry and wet: tennis courts, riding ground, mini-golf, bicycles, bowling, fitness centers, indoor and outdoor swimming pools, and many other facilities.
Riviera Holiday Club is located in the immediate vicinity of Golden Sands resort, amid a natural park of centuries-old trees at the water’s edge and on a beautiful beach.
Riviera is a wonderful combination of mild sea climate and modern spa treatment opportunities. The former governmental residence, situated right on the shore, with its own beaches and park with fine old trees, nowadays offers 493 hotel rooms with 1000 beds in 5 hotels of different category
Riviera Holiday Club is a renowned exclusive centre of business tourism, with a capacity to satisfy any convention and business meeting requirements.
Riviera Holiday Club is a prestigious holiday club combining the tranquility of nature with modern comforts and health procedures.

St. St. Konstantin and Elena

In 1897 the municipality of Varna undertook to build tourist properties in the ancient area of the monarchical cloister “St. St. Konstantin and Elena”. Construction works began almost a century ago and the resort is named after the nearby St. St. Konstantin and Elena Monastery, built at the beginning of the 18th century. Bulgaria’s oldest Black Sea resort, located 9 km north of Varna and 479 km east of the capital of Bulgaria, the city of Sofia, is an elegant holiday destination which prides itself on a long tradition of hospitality.
Situated in a fine old park with cypresses, lilies and fig trees, quiet bays, sand beaches and curative mineral springs, the resort offers comfortable hotels, villa-settlements and holiday houses, dominated by the Grand Hotel Varna (one of the best Bulgarian sea hotels), modern restaurants serving national and European cuisine, sports and entertainment for any age and excursions.

Saint Elias

The most fashionable and representative hotel in this complex of tourist properties is the tourist area of St. Elias, comprising the Grand Hotel Varna and a couple of renewed 4-star hotels scattered in an oasis of greenery, sea and curative mineral water. Holidaymakers can take some rest and enjoy their stay in the sea centre, inside and outside swimming pool areas, and have fun in the wide variety of restaurants and pubs as well as in one of the biggest casinos in the area.

Sunny Day

Sunny Day Tourist Complex – A luxury tourist complex with elegant hotels situated right on the shore 10 km north of the city of Varna, in the immediate vicinity of St. St. Konstantin and Elena resort. Sunny Day is a peaceful green oasis in a sheltered bay with one kilometer of coastal area, a lovely natural park, clean sea, and golden sand and mineral springs.
The tourist attractions and entertainment are catered through 6 restaurants offering Bulgarian and European cuisine, day and night bars, discos, pools, and bowling rooms. Sunny Day also has two fully equipped spa centers offering over 100 different kinds of medical treatment procedures and beauty care, highly qualified medical personnel. Sunny Day offers excellent conditions and facilities for conventions, conferences and receptions in six halls with full audio-visual equipment, seating from 20 to 230 persons.

Elenite

Elenite Holiday Village is situated at the foot of the Balkan Range, right next to the shore, 45 km away from the city of Bourgas and 10 km from Sunny Beach resort, with a whole range of two and three storey villas, cobbled narrow streets, and sport and entertainment facilities. The holiday village is equipped with a conference hall with over 200 seats, a trade centre, and offers rooms with excellent conditions for family holidays, a multitude of restaurants, bars, cafes, games halls, discos, a shopping centre with post office and polyclinic, an outdoor sea water swimming pool, a kindergarten with children’s pool, tennis courts, and lots of live show programs.
The hotel beds number 1026, divided in three zones. Eremite Holiday Village offers many sport facilities – fitness, aerobics, pool, shooting, trampoline and almost all activities are in the package tour – the so called “all inclusive” program.

Sunny Beach

Sunny Beach – this holiday village lies only 42 km north of the city of Bourgas, featuring wide and warm sea with gently sloping sand bottom. The resort is famous for the combination of sunshine and fresh breeze, and for the varied cultural program. The Golden Orpheus International Festival of Bulgarian Pop Songs, taking place in Sunny Beach is long established.
Stretching along a beautiful semi-circular bay facing east, Sunny Beach was established in the early sixties of the past century. It is the biggest resort, with the longest and widest beach strip, with hotels spread along the beach and among the dunes.
What can be found in Sunny Beach? A wide semi-circular bay facing east over an 8 km long beach strip, with fine golden sand, natural dunes, a clean and gently sloping sea. Conditions for water sports are excellent indeed. Hundreds of restaurants, taverns and entertainment places are open till early morning to satisfy any taste and preferences. Water sports are a great pleasure and an irresistible temptation in Sunny Beach as a very up-to-date resort area. There is a great abundance of bathing pools, some of them naturally mineralized. Sunny Beach has lots of hotels, campsites and amazing catering establishments: restaurants, taverns with folklore shows, bars with floor shows, night clubs, casinos, discos and cafes, providing culinary pleasures and a good mood for tourists.

Varna

The Black Seaside capital of Bulgaria is the title awarded to the city of Varna – the third biggest city in that country. Bourgas, which comes right after Varna in the ranking, is the largest city in this South Black Sea region and is not less worth of such recognition. Both big cities of Varna and Bourgas, municipality and governing region centers nowadays, have preserved a great history and culture and become very flourishing business and trade centers. Varna and Bourgas have been tourist regions since early times. It is easy to see why, when having a look at all these grand hotels, motels and tourist properties, which welcome domestic tourist and international visitors all year round.
Varna, which the ancient Greeks called Odessos, is a city with an incredible historical heritage. The oldest processed gold in the history of the world is found in the Varna necropolis dating from the 5th century BC.
Varna became a very famous tourist attraction and resort area in the 20th century. Nowadays Varna is the centre of the North Black Sea coastline, its port is the second largest after the Bourgas one. There is an international airport and a railroad station – active transport communication facilities connecting Varna with the inland parts of the country. Symbols of the Bulgarian sea capital are: the Seaside Garden with its unique and picturesque trees, the great amount of ancient monasteries and cultural properties, the Congress and Festival Centre, the Palace of Sports and Culture and the various preserved buildings dating from 19th and 20th century, built in Wiener style. The Seaside Garden – the biggest park of Varna, situated along the beach offers a golden and fine sand strip, water sliding facilities, flower gardens and water basins, welcoming cafeterias, aquarium, and dolphinarium. The Planetarium – the first to be established in Bulgaria of its kind is also located here. The Tower of the planetarium is equipped with a Foucault pendulum that shows the movement of the Earth. It is the only one of that type on the Balkan Peninsula. Within the sea park area one can find the Seaside Baths, the Navy Museum, the Museum of Natural History, the Aquarium (unique exposition of water organisms – Black Sea, freshwater, tropical fishes), the Astronomical Observatory and the Planetarium which organizes viewings for visitors, the Dolphinarium with an amusing show, etc. The Roman thermal baths, 2nd or 3rd century BC, are the largest vestiges of such thermal baths in our land. The ethnographic museum, the Clock Tower built in 1880, as well as the Church of the Assumption are also worth visiting. Varna is an all-year holiday destination. Beyond the high season its balneotherapy facilities can help you unwind and enjoy the many sights and sounds in peace.

South Black Sea
Bourgas

Bourgas – the city is the fourth largest in Bulgaria, situated in the most western part of the Bourgas Bay, spreading on a peninsula surrounded by the three famous lakes – Bourgasko, Atanaskovo and Mandrensko. The city of Bourgas is turning to be the most vivid and busy centre in the South Black Sea coastline and has the biggest port area in Bulgaria with well-developed industry and flourishing trade relations. The Port of Bourgas is the biggest seaport in the country. The Airport of Bourgas is the one where the international flights land in summer. It’s not famous as a beach resort (although you can find a few beaches), but rather as a starting point for the big southern Black Sea resorts in Bulgaria with its railway station facilities and busy bus station.
The favorable geographical location and advanced transport infrastructure of Bourgas are good prerequisites for development of tourism and trade. Bourgas is not only an important industrial centre in the country, it also has considerable resources for tourism. What mostly attracts people here is undoubtedly the sea. The Sea Garden which rivals the one in Varna, the Cathedral of St. St. Cyril & Methodius with lavish decorations of mural paintings and frescos, the Armenian Church, the catholic cathedral, the churches of St. Deva Maria and St. Ivan Rilski, the Natural Science Museum, the Philharmonic orchestra and the Art Gallery. The city beach in the proximity of the Sea Garden is a very busy and visited place. There is a whole range of bars, restaurants, cafeterias, entertainments and sport facilities on one side and the natural tourist attraction – the golden sand, on the other. The dark color of the sand on the seacoast of Bourgas is due the tinge of magnetic alloys which have a very curative effect.

Duni

Forty kilometers south of the city of Bourgas, sheltered in the northern slopes of Strandzha mountain is the very attractive holiday resort Duni (Dunes) with its sand strip of 4.5 km. If you pay attention to the name you will find out for yourself how the place came to be called in this way. The picturesque and unique sea bay area of this vacation holiday resort is a real paradise to holidaymakers attracted by the opportunities for sport and sunbathing. There is no other spot in Bulgaria so close to the sea and to its romantic atmosphere as Duni. The area is a natural reserve where you may also notice the migration route Via Pontica. The holiday resort Duni is comprised of three separate areas of excellently grouped architecture: Pelican, Marina and Panorama. The basic idea of the architects is to reproduce the romantic side of a small Bulgarian village with narrow cobbled streets, sunny areas and flower gardens, to feel a different ambience and charm. The ecological balance, well preserved through all these years, is awarded with the Blue Flag eco-label award.