Bulgaria – Nesebar July2007
Dogrose

Today was going to be Bourgas day. The idea was to rise early, shower, breakfast and then make our way to the bus station while it was still pleasantly cool. Bourgas is only a 45 minute bus journey away so it seem a good way of introducing ourselves to travelling in Bulgaria.
It was a good plan but didn’t take in the possibility of oversleeping. So after a quick re-think we decide to head for the picturesque town of Nesebar, 5km down the road and easily reached by bus, boat or taxi.

The bus seemed to be a good option as we figured we could find out where the station was and equip ourselves with travel information for our delayed trip to Bourgas the next day, thus ensuring that we could get off to an early start, providing we didn’t oversleep again.
The bus station took a bit of finding, we knew it was somewhere along the main road at the back of the hotel strip but after 10 minutes of walking with no obvious signs (like large bus looking vehicles and queues of people all clutching bags and tickets) we started to wonder if we were walking in the right direction.
Eventually, on the other side of the road, we spotted a few bus stops, a ticket booth and a small queue.
The bus , it turned out, stops at several places along the main road and you pay your 0.5 lev on board (The taxi driver we spoke to opposite the terminal wanted 20 leva for the journey although he did drop down to 15 as we started to walk away).
It took about 10 minutes to old town Nesebar, knowing where to get off wasn’t a problem as the town is at the end of a causeway with nowhere else to go.

Jewel of Bulgaria’s Black sea coast, Nesebar is an incredibly scenic little town which unfortunately is veiled in the height of season by bus loads of tourists, souvenir shops and restaurants – a picturesque olde worlde shopping mall on cobblestone streets.
It does have some beautiful buildings nestled amongst the new red roofs and several church ruins, the churches that are still in one piece tend to be museums or art galleries.
It’s definitely worth a visit if you’re holidaying in Sunny beach, as it’s only a short distance away. The only suggestion I would make is that you maybe leave it until late afternoon, after the tour buses have left.

Because of our late start, by the time we had arrived in Nesebar and had lunched it was around 2pm and hot. We walked around for about an hour glancing at various stalls and shops when we found ourselves out side a beautiful church/art gallery, but unfortunately it was closed.
Wilting in the heat we decided we’d seen enough for one day and headed toward the quay where both buses and boats depart from.
Being adventurous souls we opted for one of the small, converted fishing boats, figuring a bit of wind and sea spray was just what we needed to cool ourselves down. The boat took about 30 minutes. The first half of the journey was a little choppy and gained several oohs, ahhs and the occasional squeal from the rather nervous woman sitting beside me. We did get a little wet and although the journey cost us 15 leva each, instead of the 8 leva that the guide book stated, we were nicely refreshed by the time we stumbled back into our hotel room and settled down for an afternoon nap.