ABOUT BULGARIA: Activities

If you like you can spend all day lazing on miles of golden sands, diving from rocks or wind surfing. On the other hand, you may want to be more active.

The Strandzha National Park is an outstanding area of natural beauty which hosts a wide range of activities. The most obvious is walking and hiking through miles of unspoilt beach and oak forests teeming with wildlife. Bears, wolves, wild cats, deer and jackals are all out there in the forests if you can find them, though finding a bear or a pack of wolves is perhaps not everybody’s idea of fun! This is also home to the Bulgarian wild boar, which can be hunted in season under strict controls.

The area is also the natural habitat for a wide range of wild flowers and shrubs, an interesting mixture of both Mediterranean and continental species. There are also over 1100 species of butterflies and moths to be found. I f you prefer, you can hire a mountain bike for a few pounds and reach even further into the forests and highlands.

But the great glory of eastern Bulgaria is the huge bird migrations in spring and summer. A circling mass of hundreds of black and white storks is a wonder to behold. Many of the birds over-winter or nest in the salt marshes on the coast. Email The Bulgarian Society for the Protection of Birds for more details.

Fishing in most lakes and rivers is not only allowed but also gives good returns. Trout and carp are both found in the lakes around Veleslav and native varieties of coarse fish are to be found in the Veleka River in the Strandzha.

We have also heard that Bulgaria is becoming a popular centre for hang gliding, probably associated with some of its rocky cliffs and summer thermals.

On a cultural level eastern Bulgaria boasts two exceptional towns, Nessebar and Sozopol. Nessebar (50 minutes from Veleslav) is an island joined to the mainland by a causeway. It has almost as many churches as houses, including a 4th century Metropolitan, plus the remains of impressive town walls. Sozopol (40 minutes from Bulgari and Kondalovo) is an old Greek town on a promontory around a wide harbour. Its narrow winding streets are lined with traditional Bulgarian houses, with their overhanging upper floors and balconies. The beaches to the north and the south of the town are superb.