Bulgarian Coastline of the Black Sea

Worth a detour

This is an entry for a coastline rather than a place you can stand in — one pin doing duty for 378 kilometres, about 130 of them sand. Worth knowing before you book anything: the north is rock, capes and single small coves, the south is wide beaches and river mouths, and the two halves suit completely different holidays.

Story

Background

North of Varna the coast is a limestone plateau that ends in cliffs — up to about seventy metres at Kaliakra — cut here and there by short valleys that reach the water as one small beach each: Bolata, Rusalka, Tyulenovo. South of Burgas the land drops and the rivers widen, and the sand runs for kilometres at Ropotamo, Arkutino, Primorsko and the Veleka mouth at Sinemorets.

The season runs roughly May to October. High summer is hot and the sea reaches the mid-twenties, but July and August are also when the built resorts — Sunny Beach, Golden Sands, Albena — are at their least appealing. May, June and September each get more than 240 hours of sunshine and a fraction of the people; July and August pass 300 hours and most of the population of central Europe.

The coast is also where Bulgaria's wetlands are concentrated: the Burgas lakes, Pomorie, Poda, Durankulak and Shabla in the far north, and Strandzha where the hills meet the sea. That is the strongest argument for coming in September — the water is still warm, the resorts have emptied, and the migration is overhead.