We crossed the Turkish-Bulgarian border between Kirklareli and Malko Tarnovo. We suffered with the mountainous terrain, but the large road on the Turkish side was quite calm and overall we enjoyed the ride, seeing even some rests of snow in the heights of the border pass (some 650 m high). We were quite lucky to find a large holiday resort right at the entrance of Malko Tarnovo since it was getting dark and very chilly. The gentleman at the counter spoke fortunately good English but had to call his colleague who came only for us from the small town some 2-3 km away so that we could pay with card (we had no leva).

 

From Malko Tarnovo- where we were surprised to find a nice small museum with at least some explanation in English about the region`s history - we crossed the incredibly calm and beautiful Strandja-Region via Grammatikovo to Tsarevo (some idyllic wild camping near Kondolovo) and continued then along the coast towards Burgas, avoiding wherever possible the national road 99. One night, we checked in into a closed (yes, the security guard let us in) camp site with direct access to a Black Sea beach.

A nice highlight was a visit to the Poda-Reserve just a few kilometers South of Burgas where the ranger explained that the wetlands are actually old refinery oxidation basins (i.e. dumps for poisonous liquid waste) and where nature is taking over with reed and impressive numbers of birds.

 

Generally, the Bulgarian Black Sea coast suffers from the massive use of concrete for really ugly holiday resorts, hotels etc., but the worst is around Burgas and Varna. Most Bulgarians seem to suffer with this spoiled landscape and regret that corruption is facilitating these developments. Most of them are complete ghost towns off beach season, i.e. most of the year. It was hard to find any functioning infrastructure (supermarkets, cafes, restaurants etc) at this time of the year.

 

From Burgas we paid a visit to Nessebar. This UNESCO town was almost empty at this time of the year and most of the Byzantines churches for which it is so famous were unfortunately closed. The interesting museum, however, was open and the cleaning lady working there (Spanish speaking) let us at least into the most important church.

 

To avoid the E87 from Nessebar we crossed the Stara Planina/Balkan mountain range on small and calm roads a bit further inland from the coast via Panitsovo, Solnik, Dolni Chiflik, Dabravino, Sindel and crossed the estuary with the ferry at Beloslav. Yvan, our warmshowers host in Varga confirmed that he recommends exactly that route to his cycling guests going the opposite direction, i.e. riding from his place (Varna) to the South. Yvan also has an impressively well-equipped workshop and patiently and skillfully repaired our mudguard of the front wheel which did not stand the vibrations caused by the Bulgarian patch-work tarmac on the small mountain roads. To be honest: Only a few streches were in really very bad shape. Varna had a nice vibe we thought, with nice cafes, art deco beach infrastucture and a huge park - and one of the best archeological museums in Bulgaria. The collection of gold jewellery from more than 5000 years is outstanding.  St. Stefan, Nessebar

 

Nessebaroutstanding.