Chernomorets

Worth a detour

Chernomorets is what Sozopol would be without the old town: a small, plain, working coastal place with more than nine kilometres of shore and four bays to itself, half an hour from Burgas. The draw is the beaches — Gradina and Zlatna Ribka to the south, with protected dunes between them — and the fact that they are cheaper and less crowded than anything nearer the peninsula.

Story

Background

The town was called Sveti Nikola until 1951 and became a town only in 2009. Its church of St Nicholas, built in 1858, burned in 1995 and was rebuilt. There is a small museum of the same dedication, run as part of the Sozopol museum centre. None of that is why people come.

They come for the sand. Chernomorets beach is in front of the town; Chernomorets-south, Camping Chernomorets, Camping Gradina, Gradina and Zlatna Ribka run away south towards Sozopol, each with its own concession and its own prices. Umbrellas and loungers run from about €3 to €6 apiece depending on the beach, which is well below the Sozopol and Sunny Beach rates. Camping Chernomorets held a Blue Flag in 2026; Gradina and Zlatna Ribka did not.

Between the two campsites is a protected dune field of thirty-three hectares, declared in 1984, where vehicles, camping and building are prohibited. Bulgaria has lost a great deal of its coastal dune to construction and this is one of the better surviving stretches, so walk over it on the paths rather than through it. The town also has archaeology it does nothing with: an antique complex on Cape Akra to the north-west, an early Byzantine church in the Akladi dunes, and a Neolithic settlement at Akladi Chairi, none of them presented.