Hello everyone;
Today I wanted to write a different article for you.
More than 2 weeks ago, with my own car, I made a small getaway to Bulgaria by crossing the border gate of Kırklareli. While making this getaway, I especially wanted to choose the seaside regions, but I got a lot of help from the friends on the facebook page called News from Bulgaria. I would like to thank them through my own blog page.
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The Breakthrough City of Desolation: Burgas
Burgas continues to top the list as the best place to live in Bulgaria. After spending just a few hours strolling through the magnificent Sea Gardens, relaxing on Central Beach and browsing the shops in the generously pedestrianized city center, you can enjoy a nice meal in one of the open-air restaurants.
Sea Garden
Burgas has many beauties in itself. First of all, I can tell you about the area called “Sea Garden”. You can take a walk in the garden full of greenery by the sea and sip your coffee in the outdoor cafes. The recently renovated Burgas Sea Garden is shady and full of colorful flowers along the coast. There are hotels, cafes, restaurants, exhibition centers, ice cream carts to cool off on a hot summer day and hammocks for a little laziness.
Atanasovsko Lake
Lake Atanasovsko is a local favorite for its healing mud and lye water. You can lie in the lye pools and then apply black mud to your skin. The beach is less than 100 meters (300 ft) away and there are showers. There is a free parking lot, but you can also reach the area on foot or by bike from Seaside Park (Burgas has a city bike rental system).
Lake Atanasovsko is also a busy birding spot – out of a total of 423 bird species found in Bulgaria, 316 can be seen here. The lake is hyper-saline and has been used for salt extraction for over a century.
Aquae Calidae – Thermopolis
Aquae Calidae is a walk through the history of mineral water and SPA for the last 2,000 years. About 2,000 years ago, there was a Roman town here called Thermopolis, which had baths with hot and cool pools. Then in the 1500s the Ottoman sultan Suleiman the Magnificent built his baths here and today you can see a beautiful restoration of the recreation center with a 3D mapping film telling the story of the area.
The Pier ( Scaffolding )
One of the landmarks of Burgas, the Pier stretches almost 300 m (1000 ft) into the sea and offers a relaxing walk with occasional saltwater splashes. Secondly, at the end of the walk you can see couples holding hands next to the terraces on the viewing platform.
I can’t say that we encountered many Turks in the central points of the region, but it is possible to find shops selling Turkish food in the side streets.
The City That Makes You Feel the Freedom of Getting Lost in the Streets: Nesebar
If you think this title is a bit exaggerated, let’s take you to Nesebar 🙂 One of the legendary cities on the Black Sea coast… Just like Bursa’s Cumalıkızık village, Nesebar is a city that entered the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1983.
I did some research about Nesebar…
In the ancient city of Nesebar, several successive civilizations left their traces over a period of 3000 years. It started with the local Thracians, followed by the Greeks, Romans and the Byzantines, who turned it into a Christian spiritual center in the Middle Ages. Not much has been written in the reviews so far about this small Bulgarian town, threatened by its proximity to the Sunny Beach resort (the name says it all…) and overrun by the worst kind of day-trippers, especially in summer.
Nesebar’s current charm is mostly due to its Byzantine churches – there is almost nothing left from other periods of its existence. It reminded me a bit of Ohrid in Macedonia, a small town with Byzantine churches in the middle of souvenir shops and restaurants. None of the old churches in Nesebar are now in religious use (they are either ‘museums’ or ruins), whereas it is believed that there is still some (albeit limited) religious feeling for Ohrid.
Stroll the Streets Accompanied by the Sounds of Sea Waves: Sozopol
What a lie 🙂 I saved the best for the very last. As the lead singer performs last, I thought this would be the last act of this blog post.
I especially want to overwhelm you with the text, and in the articles I have written so far, “the article with the shortest text but the most visuals” was intentionally this article.
I came across the following information about the history of Sozopol.
Sozopol is the oldest settlement on the Black Sea coast of Bulgaria, founded in 611 BC by Greek colonists from Miletus, who called their home Apollonia Pontica in honor of the god Apollo, in a region inhabited by Thracians. One of these early settlers was the philosopher and astronomer Anaximander.
Governed by an elected Council of Archons, Apollonia flourished, trading wine, salt, textiles, ceramics and copper with neighboring Thracian tribes and Greek cities, and expanded its territory to include modern-day Pomorie and Burgas. By the time the Roman Empire began to expand into the region in the 1st century BC, the city had already lost its importance as a commercial power and in 72 BC Apollonia was sacked, most of the city destroyed and the famous bronze statue of Apollo taken to Rome as a trophy.
During the Byzantine Empire and renamed Sozopolis (City of Salvation), the town, although it found itself on the front line, regained some of its former status as a civilized Greek city, falling to Han Tervel in 705, being recaptured by the Byzantines in 759, and finally returned to the First Bulgarian Empire (681-1018) in 969.
At the end of the war between the Russians and the Ottomans (1877-78), most of the citizens of Sozopol fled to Russia and the Ottomans to avoid being harmed in the war. The town remained empty for decades before being resettled by Turks, Bulgarians and Greeks. During the communist era, the town was promoted as a holiday destination, but it wasn’t until the 1990s that it really took off, with Russians and Germans among the more numerous foreign visitors.
In the area it is possible to find a piece of artifacts from each nationality.
Due to my work, I travel around Turkey a lot, so I will share the Turkish version of this article with you very soon.
Hope to see you in the next article;
