Sea Garden

Worth a detour

Burgas keeps its industry, its port and its lakes out of sight and gives the sea to this one long park. It runs more than five kilometres along a low cliff, and the oldest part of it is protected as a work of landscape design. Come at seven in the evening rather than at noon: this is where the whole city walks, and the point is the crowd as much as the planting.

Story

Background

The ground between the town and the shore was bare and wind-scoured, and the first trees went into it in the 1890s. The garden proper dates from 1910, when the municipality took on Georgi Duhtev, a young gardener trained in Austria who later ran Sofia's Borisova Gradina. He planted for novelty as much as for shelter, bringing in species from several continents, and the result is less a municipal park than a collection that got away from its curator. Around six hundred decares of it survive, and the oldest quarter carries the status of a monument of landscape art.

What is in it, walking north from Bogoridi Street: the terrace locals call the parapet, which is the standing viewpoint over the beach and the bay; two fountains; the Sea Casino of 1938, now a cultural centre; the open stage known as the Snail; the Summer Theatre; the domes of the Flora pavilion, which holds an international flower show; and busts and monuments to writers the city claims, among them Petya Dubarova and Hristo Fotev, and one to Pushkin on the main avenue. A small zoo closed years ago and is not missed.

The beach lies below the whole length of it, reached by ramps and steps, and the pier runs out from the middle. Ice cream, boiled corn and a tourist train are all in plentiful supply. Allow an hour for the old section, three if you mean to walk to the salt pans at the northern end.