Hidden Bulgaria

Uzunbodzhak Reserve

2,661 hectares of primeval oak and beech on the border, and you cannot go in

closed to visitors

Vila Armira

Suburban Roman villa near Ivaylovgrad

30 min–1.5 h

Duhlata

Bulgaria's longest cave, and one you are not getting into

45 min–2 h

Adatepe

Europe's oldest known gold mine, now an active open pit

30 min–1.5 h

Vitanovo Reserve

1,106 hectares of Strandzha forest declared in 1981, with no way in

closed to visitors except on designated paths

Park Kapkata

Pomorie's town park, and the shade between the old quarter and the sand

20–45 min

Arapya

A campsite beach north of Tsarevo, and the last of the old free-camping coast

2–5 h

Atliman

Kiten's northern bay, once a coal and timber quay, now shallow and full of children

2–5 h

Aquapark Nesebar

The biggest water park on the bay, at Ravda — and the most expensive ticket in this guide

4–8 h

Eco Park Vaya

Seventy hectares on the shore of Bulgaria's largest natural lake, run for birds and horses

1.5–4 h

Sunset Aquapark

Thirty-two slides at Pomorie, open in summer only and with unheated water

3–7 h

Clock Tower of Berkovitsa

30 min–1.5 h

Chengene skele (zaliv)

A shallow bay south of Burgas with a fishing fleet and a protection order over it

30 min–1.5 h

Mishkova niva

A marble rotunda 25 metres across, inside the border zone and mostly robbed away

45 min–1.5 h

Akin

A cape north-west of Chernomorets with an unpresented antique settlement on it

30 min–1 h

Ropotamo

A thousand hectares of river, forest and dune where almost everything is forbidden

1.5–4 h

Bansko Art School Icon Gallery

30 min–1.5 h

Church of the Theotokos in Sozopol

A 15th-century church dug into the ground to keep within an Ottoman height limit

15–30 min

Rusokastron

Where Ivan Alexander beat a Byzantine emperor in 1332, on a rock above the plain

1–2 h

Kralev Dvor

A peak in the northern Pirin

1.5–5 h

Saint George Church, Veliko Tarnovo

A church in Veliko Tarnovo

30 min–1.5 h

Saint Zosimus church

An 1857 chapel in the town garden, on the ruins of a medieval church

10–20 min

Propada Sanctuary

Forty-eight Thracian mounds in an oak wood three kilometres from Malko Tarnovo

1–2 h

Veleka River Mouth

The longest river in Strandzha meets the sea across a 500-metre sandbar

1–3 h

Regional Historical Museum

One institution, four buildings, one ticket — the largest museum in south-east Bulgaria

30 min–1 h

Holy Spirit Church, Sofia

The only Carmelite monastery in Bulgaria, and Eastern Catholic

30 min–1.5 h

Peshterata na Sveta Marina

A cave shrine deep in Strandzha where the sick left tin models of their own organs

45 min–1.5 h

Pametnik na Savetskata armia

Alyosha, a Soviet soldier of 1953 standing over the city's busiest square

10–20 min

Burgas Lighthouse

Bulgaria's first port lighthouse, first lit in 1899 and rebuilt twice since

10–20 min

Festival of sand sculptures

A city of sand sculptures built every July in Park Ezero, on a new theme each year

45 min–1.5 h

Viewpoint on Sea & Old Nesebar

The lay-by on the Ravda road where the whole peninsula lines up

10–20 min

Deultum Museum Complex

A colony of Vespasian's veterans, founded in 69 AD between the two lakes

1–2 h

Rimski termi

Roman baths in the middle of Obzor, open to the street and free

20–40 min

Most south - eastern point of European Union in continental Europe

Rezovo, where Bulgaria stops: a village of about sixty and a river that is the frontier

20–45 min

State Opera Bourgas

A full opera house with its own orchestra, chorus and ballet, in a town of 200,000

2–3 h

Flora

Domed halls in the Sea Garden, and a flower show that has run since 1980

30 min–1 h

Nos Foros

The Roman tower that gave Burgas its name, dug up in 2008 beside the Poda road

30 min–1 h

Tochkata

A dyke above the salt pans where Bulgaria watches the storks come through

1–3 h

symBiotic

An interpretive space and the Avocet trail on the shore of Atanasovsko lake

45 min–1.5 h

Bulgarian Dead Sea

Free lye pools and black mud at the southern salt pans, and no attendant in sight

1–2.5 h