Bolata

Worth a detour

Two or three kilometres north of Kaliakra, a short canyon with brick-red walls drops to a semicircular cove holding the one patch of sand on this stretch of cliff coast. A stream runs out through it into a small reedy lake behind the beach. It is inside the Kaliakra reserve — the only Bulgarian reserve that takes in sea as well as land — and the facilities are minimal.

Story

Background

The coast between Kavarna and Kaliakra is almost beachless: a wall of limestone with the sea at the foot of it. Bolata is the exception, a gap where a valley reaches the water. The rock is the same iron-stained stone that gives Kaliakra its colour, and in low light it reads as genuinely red rather than merely warm.

The reedy lake behind the beach, about twenty-three hectares of it, is the ecologically interesting part: little bittern, grebes, kingfisher and herons use it, and the cove sits under the Via Pontica, so autumn brings raptors over the canyon rim. Common dolphins are seen offshore often enough to be worth watching for.

What to expect on the ground: a narrow road down, a small parking area, a few boats pulled up, and buildings that have needed attention for a long time. It is popular with people from Kavarna and it is tiny, so an August afternoon here means a crowded beach and cars parked along the approach. Early morning, or any day in September, and it is a completely different place.