Over the mountains (and appropriately, Metallica's "Fade to Black" blasting from the bus driver's sound system), the Black Sea came into view and we began our 10 days of traveling along almost the entire Eastern European coast of the Black Sea, from Sozopol, Bulgaria in the the south and ending up at Danube Delta in Tulcea, Romania.
The Black Sea is a popular summer vacation spot for neighboring Ukrainians, Romanians, Moldovans, Turks, and the English, who seem to like to go to any beach especially if it’s inexpensive (a lot of expat retirees). Large resort cities with silly names, Sunny Beach and Golden Sands, attract the young party crowds. Ancient ruins stand beside modern hotels sharing space on picturesque shorelines.
Our first stop along the Black Sea Coast was Burgas, Bulgaria, the country’s 4th largest city. The city tourist map had 60+ attractions to visit. The first five were great; churches, statues and the wonderful Sea Garden. The Sea Garden (attraction #1) had miles of walking paths winding through formal gardens, wooded areas, statues, petting zoos, children’s playgrounds, carnival rides and amphitheaters hugging the beach.
In Front of the he Sea Garden's Pantheon monument (#8) we stumbled upon a talent contest. The first contestant was too much American Idol- both in song and dress- but the second contestant brought tears to our eyes singing Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah in Bulgarian.
Every night we joined the city inhabitants, strolling through the gardens, topping the night off with refreshing cup corn, declining other options.
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| age old debate, is a hot dog a sandwich or a pastry? |
We continued to work our way through the attraction list but they soon got sadder and goofier with Burgas's desperation for attention and recognition as a renown beach town began to show; # 9 clock tower, # 23 Train Depot Monument, #35 Kilometer marker- of what? to? from?
But the real entertainment was at our 5th floor penthouse airbnb. Every night we watched fireworks from over the port. They would occur at random times and random intervals from 30 seconds to 5 minutes of fireworks. We have no idea why.
We realized later that our penthouse was actually the Alfred Hitchcock suite because of the birds.
Starting at 5 am, a flock-of-seagulls alarm clock went off with loud shrieks, followed by an all day symphony of squawking building up to a crescendo at dusk of mainly seagulls with swallow, sparrow, pigeon and bat sections, contributing, as well. With birds swooping everywhere, we had to practice our ducks whenever we stepped out on the balcony.
The added excitement was seeing baby seagulls for the first time.
Burgas was a great location for day trips since we were early-birds and we had exhausted the 60+ attractions the first afternoon; Nesebar, 45 minutes north by bus and Sozopol 30 minutes south. We got to Nesebar early and like home we enjoyed our morning coffee while reading the obits. Can't be sure but we attribute the high death rate to the cobblestone streets and the resulting head injuries.
The old city of Nesebar has been described as a city-museum following a line of forty churches (or ruins of) dating from the 5th century to the 19th century with the Black Sea backdrop.
We walked back to our bus in the new town part of Nesebar following a line of forty souvenir shops.
We have become such efficient travelers that we were able to complete our other day trip to Sozopol in an hour. In this ancient city, we followed a line of forty cafes, each with the exact same menu poster, only the restaurant names were changed, again with a beautiful Black Sea backdrop (Mexicano? tempting but um, no. )
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| Sozopol, done in record time. |
Sozopol's ancient attraction was the colossal statue (12 meters high) of Apollo, which, in a fit of Roman jealously was carted off to Rome in 72 AD and later destroyed. Modern visitors need not be disappointed.
In Varna, at the north end of Bulgaria's Black Sea coast, there was a degree of Burgas deja vu. Again, crossing out all the Bulgarian bingo card boxes;
beautiful buildings in need of repair, beautiful buildings repaired,
pedestrian streets, synagogue no longer in use- this one effectively re-purposed with a roof-top law office (still has a small synagogue but rent helps to keep it open),
and of course, fountains and
Street vendors selling wildflowers and home made goods.
There were also seagulls seen from our window (including babies) plus an old lady across the way who literally did not move for three days. (barely seen in photo below)
Like Nesebar and Sozopol, there were Roman ruins and like Trier, Germany and Paphos, Cyprus there were Roman baths (2nd Century). Seeing the exact same bath floor plan that we have seen in these vastly different areas separated by hundreds of miles illustrates the vastness of the Roman Empire.
Apparently, the goal of the Roman Empire was to build a chain of spas, advancing Nick's theory regarding the decline of the Empire- epidemic of nail fungus from the salon portion of the spas.
Varna also had a great Sea Garden, although with some significant differences. While Burgas's Sea Garden was a sculpture garden, Varna's sea garden was more of a monument garden with nationalist messaging, primarily military with a strong Soviet influence. There was a main promenade with statures of Bulgarian heroes and a formal garden with samples of dirt from monasteries and battlegrounds throughout Bulgaria. Plus the avenue of cosmonauts (2 were Bulgarian) with the highlight being the bust of Yuri Gagarin the first cosmonaut in space.
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| In Cyrillia-Anton Novak |
There was a dolphinarium, observatory (weirdly named after Nicolaus Copernicus -Polish native- who as far as we know had no relationship to Bulgaria) and an outdoor museum of mothballed Soviet planes, tanks and boats. Of course since this was Bulgaria there were fountains. We spent the majority of one day searching the Sea Garden for the monument to Anton Novak, the designer of the Sea Garden, no actual relation to Patricia just a landscaping spiritual relation.
We spent the better part of the rest of our time in Varna being concerned about and planning our departure. We had been very impressed with the efficiency of Bulgarian buses (in addition to the soundtracks and mullets) but the bus to our next destination, Constanta, Romania was a Romanian bus and the same standards did not apply. So, for three consecutive afternoons, Varna became our city of anxiety.
The unmarked mini-bus did not leave from the bus station, rather it left from the taxi lanes in front of the main church, with no signs, posted schedules or ticket office. Departure time was communicated through a game of Romanian telephone- from the tourist office worker to ice cream vendor to a revolving cast of taxi-cab drivers, who we got to know well as they constantly approached us to offer a ride. The departure time varied from 12 to 2, the mini- bus was different each day, and the fare varied depending on the currency and who we asked (Romanian Lei, Bulgarian Leu or Euro-all with an unequal exchange rate), How do we know all of this? We had two days of practice runs and by the third day (our actual departure) we were able to recognize our driver (and he recognized us, the anxious Americans) .
Our obsessive preparations paid off with a new bus experience. The Romanian driver stopped in Golden Sands, just south of the Romanian border, we were the only passengers at the time and the driver went to buy board shorts and a tank top. New passengers eventually joined along the way and included a Englishman from Manchester who liked to drink and live dangerously by not booking his lodging ahead of time. He was dropped off randomly on the outskirts of Mangalia, Romania and was pointed towards the beach and bar. In addition, three older Romanian women became fellow passengers, with one who turned out to have lived blocks from us in LA at one time. Small world (Burgas attraction #31).
This week's photo of topless old man looking out window contemplating his life (Burgas attraction #57)
Our visit to Tulcea, the entrance to the Danube Delta, was first a "oh, maybe we should go there" which quickly transformed into a highly anticipated stop as we read more and more about it.
As well as frogs, fish and dogs.
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