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Europe’s Next Big Bargain Holiday Destination “You Can’t Spend Money Here No Matter How Hard You Try” ~ by Steenie Harvey

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November 2004 US$1 equals 1.614 Bulgarian leva With its history of hard-core Eastern Bloc communism, Bulgaria may sound an unlikely vacation spot. But with soaring prices in Europe’s traditional sunshine resorts, the country’s Black Sea Riviera has become this year’s destination of desire. For the sun-starved and cost-conscious, it’s far cheaper to vacation here than Spain.  Bulgaria’s purpose-built resorts - Golden Sands, Sunny Beach, and Albena - now feature prominently in Europe’s holiday brochures. The biggest draw is that everything is so inexpensive. As one U.K. visitor says: “You can’t spend money no matter how hard you try.”

That’s resort prices. Go into a real city like Varna, and an excellent three-course meal with wine in an authentically Bulgarian restaurant costs $8. A coffee, 18 cents. And, if you can manage to munch your way through a giant melon, at market stalls they’re an equivalent 5 cents per pound. As for those resort “Raybans” - in Varna they’re $1.80.

The country is no more daunting for travelers than anywhere else in Europe. Sure, Bulgarians use the Cyrillic alphabet - and initially it looks as headache-inducing as Russian. But it doesn’t take long before you start to figure out signs. Pectopant means restaurant...the bus to Bapna is heading to Varna. And while it’s fun trying out your Dobro Utro (Good Morning), just about everybody along the Black Sea Coast speaks English.

Around eight-million people live in Bulgaria. Although it’s a poor country, it’s neither crime-ridden nor filthy. I took a money-belt...and never wore it. I took anti-diarrhea remedies...and never used them. Local buses cost next-to-nothing: the 60-mile journey between the resorts of Golden Sands and Sunny Beach cost me $3.60. Obviously you shouldn’t take foolish risks, but that advice applies anywhere, not just Eastern Europe. 

Ancient Nessebur

With more than five miles of sand, Sunny Beach is Bulgaria’s largest resort. If you’re investigating real estate here, take time out to visit Nessebur. On a peninsula, four miles from Sunny Beach, this picture-book settlement has cobbled lanes, wooden houses with jutting overhangs, and a windmill on the causeway separating the old town from the new quarter. 

Old Nessebur is gratifyingly ancient. It dates back at least to the fourth century B.C. and the mysterious sun-worshipping Thracians who built the original walls and entrance gate. Part of the gate still stands, but it didn’t keep out the ancient Greeks, Romans, or settlers from Byzantium.

Or the Turks. At one time, Nessebur had 80 chapels, churches, and basilicas. The local guidebook can now manage to pinpoint only 14. Townsfolk didn’t have joyous times under Ottoman rule - the 15th to 19th centuries. Nessebur was pillaged, churches either destroyed or converted into mosques, and all the best houses, vineyards, and fields seized. A local saying went: “Don’t plant a large vineyard, don’t build a high house, don’t take a pretty wife. That’s how you’ll keep out of trouble.”

I visited Nessebur on a cloudy afternoon - I should have guessed hundreds of Sunny Beach tourists would have the same idea. The visitors’ camcorders are intrusive, but old ladies still sit on the street making lace - the same as they have for centuries. Naturally you can buy pieces - small lace table mats start at $1.20.
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Even from a resort base, it’s easy to explore something of the Bulgaria of onion-domed churches, forests, and rock monasteries - there’s a rock monastery called Aladzha an hour’s walk through the woods beyond Golden Sands. Hermits haven’t lived here since the 14th century, and it’s not the country’s best - the murals have faded - but it’s a world apart from the bustle below.

In villages just five miles outside Varna (a seaside city of 350,000 inhabitants), you’ll still see farmers traveling by horse and cart. This is the Bulgarians’ Bulgaria, where you can get excellent meals such as tarator (cold yoghurt and cucumber soup) followed by baked lamb with olive-studded rice. And if you feel a sudden urge for buttered brains or stuffed goose hearts, they also appear on “real” menus. 

Varna is 12 miles from Golden Sands. If you’re dubious about riding local buses, taxis cost 12 to 15 leva (approximately $7.50 to $9.50). Despite the short journey, many tourists only take organized afternoon tours to the Dolphinarium Show in the five-mile-long Primorski Sea Park fringing the city. Complete with kiddies’ funfair rides and archery targets, this is where locals bronze on the beach. 

Although Varna’s Roman Baths are something of a disappointment - and there’s still plenty of ugly Stalinist apartment blocks - the heart of the city is all shady tree-lined boulevards and late 19th-century buildings. A rose-pink Opera House...the Cathedral of the Assumption with domes of glinting gold...the treasures of the Archaeological Museum on Maria Louisa Boulevard. 

The World’s Oldest Gold

Star of the museum’s show is “the Oldest Gold in the World.” Six-thousand years ago, long before the Pyramids were built, goldsmiths were at work on the Black Sea shores. A few miles from Varna, a necropolis with almost 300 graves was discovered in 1972. The graves contained almost 2,000 gold artifacts - the oldest gold objects ever discovered. They included diadems, scepters, and funerary masks. In one display case, the bones of a tribal chieftain lie surrounded by gold jewelry. 

Across from Varna’s Nezavisimost Square and the Opera House is a pedestrianized street: Knyaz Boris I. Halfway down is St. Nikolai’s church, where you’ll find stalls with painted icons of Orthodox saints. Priced from an equivalent $1.20 for matchbox-sized icons, they go up to $80 for the largest. They’re not antique icons - it’s illegal to export those from Bulgaria without a permit - but you can get good monastic copies. 

I never made it to Rila, Bulgaria’s largest and most famous monastery.. I also missed out on Bansko, a ski resort that’s grown up from a 10th-century town...the Strandjha mountain villages whose ancient rituals include fire-dancers walking across burning embers...the Valley of Roses where attar of roses is produced. Certainly for me, Bulgaria offers much to come back for...
 

Gardens in Balchik

Turkish Toy-Boy North of Golden Sands, Balchik is another easy trip. A town of red-roofed houses huddled under white chalk cliffs, its main attraction are the palace gardens of Tehna Yova (the Quiet Nest).  This part of Bulgaria’s coast belonged to Romania between the two world wars. Tehna Yova was Queen Marie of Romania’s summer residence. Born in England in 1875, the fair Marie had unexpectedly exotic tastes for a granddaughter of Queen Victoria. At the age of 60, she acquired a 20-year-old Turkish lover.  Overlooking the Black Sea, the Palace is more a collection of villas - but the terraced gardens are a stunning example of Gothic-gone-mad. Their 87 acres include stone labyrinths and water mills, fairy-tale wells and weather-worn crosses from monastic graveyards; water-lily ponds, waterfalls, and stone bridges...colonnades and courtyards; an Arabian bathing pavilion; a Byzantine Orthodox chapel; the cactus-filled Garden of Allah, and the flower-laden Garden of the Gods.

It costs $3 to visit Tehna Yova gardens; $6 to include Queen Marie’s villa, complete with pencil-thin minaret. During summer, they’re open every day until 6 p.m. Mini-buses run past the palace from Albena, which is also linked to Golden Sands by bus.

Holiday-Resort Truths

Now the non-rose-colored truth:The resort experience won’t suit everybody. Things aren’t as dire as in Spanish mega-resorts like Torremolinos, but it’s still mass market - complete with all that mass-market tourism entails. Whinging kids. Beer-swilling oiks in soccer shirts. Clientele that act like they belong in correctional facilities. 

Is it only the British who steal food at breakfast so they don’t have to buy lunch? As a Brit myself, it’s shaming to watch them putting together ham rolls, wrapping them in serviettes, then slyly dropping them into carrier bags. 

In the evenings, loud music blasts everywhere. Even hotel guests are subjected to excruciating cover versions of Jailhouse Rock, The Rivers of Babylon, and Madonna’s Isla Bonita. And with packs of Victory cigarettes at $1, many visitors smoke themselves silly. As a smoker myself I’m not complaining, but only four-and five-star hotels generally have non-smoking sections in restaurants.

From the outside, many new Black Sea hotels wouldn’t look out of place in Florida. However, don’t expect similar standards of service or food. Cabbage soup has vanished, but most resort hotels have eagerly embraced the poor-quality niche that Spain once occupied. Incredible though this may seem, greedy package companies offer a B&B option only in the cheapest hotels. In the better establishments, tourists must pay for dinner whether they want it or not. 

I was forced into the dreaded half-board arrangement for two days at Sunny Beach. Fiesta Beach Hotel, which allegedly has four stars, but dinner revolves around sloppy stews, frozen fish wedges in batter overcoats, and fries with everything. (As I was paying for it, I figured I might as well have it.) It’s a sad reflection on how much the desire for a suntan has devalued the travel experience, but many holiday-makers seem satisfied with mediocrity. And if they can’t stomach hotel food, there’s always McDonalds...

Prostitution is legal, by the way. At Golden Sands, Bulgaria’s second-largest resort, prostitutes openly tout for business. They only approach single men, or groups of men, but it’s not what you expect from a family resort. They’re most active on the street that’s home to the Muppet Bar, Hotel Kamchia, and Bonkers Disco. 

Finding A Hotel

Trying to book resort hotels on the Internet is difficult. You cannot book directly - hotels don’t seem geared up for independent travelers. Although finding accommodation on your own isn’t impossible, you’ll probably have to use a Bulgarian agency. I made my reservations at the Hotel Fiesta in Sunny Beach through www.sunny-beach-hotels.internet-bg.net - which is based in Sofia (Bulgaria’s capital). (Tel. (359)296-315-52; e-mail: nadya@internet-bg.net.)

For the four-star Fiesta in September, you’ll pay an equivalent $83 per night for a double if booking through the above agency. Asking at reception for a proper price list, I was told: “See your holiday rep.”

“But I don’t have a rep...I’m a private traveler.” The receptionist wouldn’t even give me the hotel e-mail. All I got was a 2005 brochure for Balkantours, a U.K. package company.

In Golden Sands and Sunny Beach, you don’t see locals advertising rooms—for the simple fact no locals live there. Workers get bussed in from Varna and Bourgas (the nearest city to Sunny Beach) each day.

In Golden Sands, I stayed in Hotel Pliska - part two-star, part three. My three-star room was fine, but you may find the clientele a bit rough and ready. Depending on season, rooms cost an equivalent $24 to $48 per day. (Per person including breakfast; bookable through www.goldensands.bg or www.albotourist.com.) The resort’s main casino hotel is Grand Hotel International. Double rooms here list from $55 to $80 per person per night.

In Varna, you can book direct with www.varnahotels.com. The best four-star value in the center is be the Aqua Hotel on Devnya Street - $63 for standard singles/doubles including breakfast. Dinner at the hotel (soup or salad, main course, dessert, mineral water) costs $6.
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Six Tips To Make Your Travels Easier 1. Hardly anywhere accepts credit cards, but only change dollars at hotel receptions or banks. At many currency booths, you’ll get around 30% less leva than at a bank. It’s daylight robbery - and quite legal. Chase away anybody offering to change money on the street. Easiest bet is always an ATM. 2. Keep small coins handy if needing to visit the toilet in bars or restaurants. Although you’re paying for a meal or drinks, some establishments employ a wizened granny who expects payment for using the facilities. Around 7 cents is ample.  3. Carry your luggage at airports. An Irish girl at check-in foolishly paid 10 leva ($6.30) for use of a luggage cart. At that rate, I’m not surprised she wanted to take it on the plane. (Incidentally, everything in Varna airport’s duty-free shop is priced in euro. They don’t accept leva.)

Queen Marie's in Balchik

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4. Taxi fares in Sunny Beach are outrageous. Negotiate the fare before getting in rather than going for the meter rate. One crook outside the Fiesta tried to charge me $9.45 for the two-mile journey into the resort center. When I remonstrated, he said fares rose after 10 p.m. After pointing out it was only 9.40 p.m., he proposed a fare of $7.40. I walked -  going anywhere in this resort shouldn’t cost more than $5. 

5. Unless you hanker for Stalinist comforts, don’t stay in hotels with less than three stars. Most one - and two - star hotels date from communist times and haven’t been refurbished.

6. Don’t get annoyed by the dual-pricing system. Think how much you earn compared with the average Bulgarian. An English-language news agency in Sofia reported resort hotels reduce prices by 35% for locals in late August. I don’t know what Bulgarians pay - it seems like a State secret - but prices weren’t reduced for foreigners. To avail of reduced rates - and they also apply to things like admissions for museums and monuments - you need a Bulgarian identity card.

What’s The Property Market Like?

My primary purpose for visiting Bulgaria was to scout out investment prospects for Global Real Estate Investor (www.globalrealestateinvestor.com). With the majority of investors purchasing in the resorts, that’s where I headed. I don’t think GREI members will mind me sharing the news that new-build Black Sea apartments sell for less than $100 per square foot. For a European beach resort, that’s beyond low. New-build city apartments start at $60 per square foot. As for countryside cottages, hundreds are available for $10,000 to $20,000. (Though for that price, don’t expect bathrooms!)

Living On Less Than $200 A Month

Some British pensioners have moved to Bulgaria so their U.K. pensions will stretch further. And here they’ll stretch a long way indeed.

The average wage for Bulgarian white-collar workers is less than $200 a month. Manual and agricultural workers get far less. Only this week, it was reported that the government aims to increase the minimum monthly wage from 120 leva ($75.60) to 150 leva ($94.50). The state pension - as yet there’s no such thing as private pensions - is 100 leva ($63) per month for a single person, 150 leva ($94.50) for couples. 

Everything in resort mini-markets is over-priced. But go where Bulgarians shop and you’ll find most fruit and vegetables cost less than 35 cents per pound. If you’ve never tasted Bulgarian peaches straight off the tree, you’ve not tasted peaches. I can’t remember the last time I had tomatoes as delicious - probably it’s because Bulgarian farmers still use old-fashioned organic methods. 

A pound of rice costs 20 cents...a loaf of bread is 37 cents...a pound of chicken costs $1.40...a pound of cheese is 85 cents...a bottle of Bulgarian brandy $1.80.
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