FIRST OF ALL A FEW TRAVEL HINTS
Getting there:
It takes about 3 days to drive to the Black Sea coast from the North of England - but that's without stopping apart from to eat and sleep. We usually use the Norfolk Line ferry Dover to Dunkerque as it has proven to be reliable, cheap and lands you in the best position to avoid the French toll motorways. However, Harwich-Hook of Holland has become a lot more competitive this year, cuts a good few miles off for people from the North and at only £34 for a twin cabin the overnight crossing can get you off to a flying start.
Few people now report any problems in Serbia but if you are carrying goods it's worth remembering that there are customs checks entering and leaving this non-EU country. Our preferred routes are:
Dunkerque - Brussels - Luxembourg - Nurenberg (or Hook of Holland - Arnhem - Ruhr - Frankfurt - Nurenberg . . . )
- Vienna - Budapest - Szeged (end of motorway) - Timisoara - and then either Calafat (Danube Ferry to Vidin BG) or Georghiu (Danube Bridge to Ruse BG)
and
Dunkerque - Luxembourg - Nancy - Colmar - Basel - Gotthard Tunnel - Milan - Bari for Ferry to Igoumenitsa - Thessaloniki - and then either Kulata if heading for Western BG or Ilinden (Gotse Delchev) if heading for the coast
Balkan's Charter flights from many UK airports to the coastal airports Burgas and Varna May to October and Plovdiv during the ski season can often be picked up cheap at the last minute but even at full price can save a lot of time and money for people living a long way from the London airports used by most scheduled services. During the summer Wizz Air operated a thrice weekly Luton - Burgas service and this is being repeated in 2008
Of particular use for North of England residents was the weekly Bulgaria Air service between Manchester and Varna but this has now ceased, though flights continue from Gatwick to Varna through the winter. The new service provided by Hungarian airline Wizz Air from Liverpool John Lennon to Bucharest Baneasa unfortunately was short lived too - it was good while it lasted though! Meanwhile Easy Jet and Wizzair serve Sofia cheaply but only from Luton and Gatwick
Another alternative presented by the rise of "low cost" airlines serving Budapest is to take a cheap flight there and then take the overnight Transbalkan train from Budapest Keleti to Bulgaria. (Connection at Ruse for Varna - the train continues by way of Sofia to Thessaloniki and Stara Zagora to Istanbul. There are also plans afoot to operate a through train service from major German cities to Burgas on the Black Sea Coast, hopefully from Summer season 2008 but we have heard nothing concrete yet. Meanwhile the journey is perfectly feasible changing at Vienna and Budapest.
Travel in Bulgaria:
Public transport is very cheap, generally reliable but not always very quick. The Bulgarian Railways timetable website is very well organised and provides all the information you might need and another useful site covers long distance bus travel - fares not given here but they are all very cheap by UK standards
Hotels in Bulgaria:
Hotels we recommend as being good value - places we keep going back to - include the following: Hotel Comfort, Veliko Tarnovo; Sea Horse, Sarafovo (Burgas Airport); Cherno More, Varna; Leipzig, Plovdiv; Hristoff, Gotse Delchev; Riga, Ruse and Orbita, Shumen but this last one preferably not in the winter.
Although we are a toyshop (at the moment!) and not a travel consultancy we will always do our best to answer questions on travel to and within Bulgaria and anything else you might want to know about Bulgaria.
Just use the e-mail enquiry form on the "contact us" page
Bourgas Airport (BOJ) - Gateway to the southern Black Sea Coast
Gilyoftsa 'our' village in Bulgaria
The Fortress Tsaravets, Veliko Turnovo
Veliko Turnovo from Tsaravets
Tsaravets, son et lumiere
Ruse bound train (approaching) crosses Stara Zagora bound train high in the Balkans
Leaving Ruse on the Dunav (Druzhba) Most on a cold February afternoon
Sunny Beach March 2006
Sunny Beach May 2006
Nessebar - the causeway in February
This Gilyoftsa cattle shed was built long before the Sage Arty Thing in Gateshead!
One difference between County Durham and Burgas Oblast (County) is that there are coal mines there!
Our house, Gotse Delchev 9
Classic Slanchev Brjag (Sunny Beach)
Sunny Beach from Nessebar end a few years ago (more hotels now)
Bulgarian visitor at Newcastle
The same TU 154M on the apron at Bourgas - 2006 was the last year for these old favourites on Balkan charters thanks to EU pressure forcing reliance on far less reliable airbuses. Progress or what?
Nessebar South Beach Summer 2006
South Beach again this October - no problem finding a pitch now!
Afternoon bus to the coast
Nessebar October 2006
Nearly home - just coming onto the bridge to Ruse, January 2008
The 1300 years of Bulgaria monument, Shumen
Heading back to Ruse, winter 2008
Ruse
Page from the GlobalBG 1:200,000 Atlas of Bulgaria - recommended, but for more detail the Russian 1:50 000 are the easily the best maps available
Below are a few pictures of our new house under construction in Gilyovtsa which will comfortably sleep up to 10 people when finished later this year and will be available for holiday letting.
. . . and one more picture of Gotse Delchev 9
