Posts Tagged ‘Bulgaria’
Fastferry.bg: hydrofoil serving Varna, Nessebar and Sozopol
Varna is long established as both a port city and a tourist location, yet it fails to offer a single boat journey aimed at visitors.
The easy alternative is FastFerry’s hydrofoil service which connects Varna with the historic towns of Nessebar and Sozopol. It offers four departures from each location per day, taking 90 minutes from Varna to Nessebar at a cost of 90 leva (almost £40) return.
The current schedule allows visitors approximately four hours in the Old Town, allowing for enough time for seeing the local ruins, lounging on the beach and grabbing some lunch (and a beer, obviously).
The Fastferry.bg office is a small portacabin facing the main maritime building and is located halfway between the south end of the city beach and the lighthouse. I’d recommend booking in advance: buying tickets on the day is a slow process and on both of our visits (the first day’s trip was cancelled due to poor weather) the office was unattended until departure time was imminent.
And here’s where the journey became a little more surreal. After the slow process of taking our names and selecting our seats, we were guided down the harbour to the hydrofoil by the admittedly very friendly stewardess.
“So…” she began tentatively. “On the outward journey, you’re the only passengers.”
“Is it normally busy?”
“Oh yes,” she declared enthusiastically. The subsequent pause suggested that this statement wasn’t entirely true. “Well, yesterday was cancelled due to bad weather. And we’ve only been going for two weeks so people are still finding out about us.”
So a service aimed at tourists has been opened halfway through peak season? It’s not great planning.
On board we’re treated to the bizarre sight of empty seats; lots of empty seats. For aside from the two of us, the stewardess and occasional visits from other staff members, the remaining hundred or so seats are entirely empty. And that’s exactly how the scene remains until we arrive punctually in Nessebar.
The journey itself is pleasant if not exactly relaxing. After edging out of the point, the hydrofoil leans back like a plane preparing for take-off and bombs southwards down the Black Sea coast.
Unless you’re particularly sensitive to turbulence or seasickness it’s a relatively smooth ride, albeit one that’s sporadically noisy and seemingly almost as warm as the temperature outside. An Eric Clapton compilation counters the engine noise, although the volume ranges from a whimper to a blast depending on which staff member happens to be passing the dial.
The hydrofoil docks in the altogether more intimate port in Nessebar’s Old Town – the town is small enough that you’re never much more than a ten minute walk away and you can’t fail to find it.
The return journey offers almost the exact same experience. The staff are again lovely, the arrival precise almost to the minute and the music rather unnecessary. Indeed, all nine mind-numbing minutes of Guns n’ Roses’ November Rain combined with the quickly declining novelty of the trip make it drag a little. But the atmosphere has improved since morning courtesy of what could well be a record-breaking 600% boost in passenger numbers – yes, there were twelve of us.
Travel guide: Varna, Bulgaria
Where?
Based on the northern end of Bulgaria’s Black Sea coast, Varna is Bulgaria’s third biggest city (and apparently fighting Plovdiv to take second place) and a contender for the 2019 European City of Culture.
It’s accessible via the nearby Varna airport (which will temporarily close this autumn for improvement work) or as a short bus journey from the Golden Sands resort.
Stay
We stayed at Hotel Hi, a centrally located boutique hotel notable for its exceptionally friendly staff and quirky decorative embellishments.
Local alternatives include the Cherno More, a towering presence that looks like it’s been lifted from a south London estate yet offers exceptional views and all manner of entertainment (albeit with an almost comically barren reception), or the Odessos which is perched just seconds from the Sea Garden and the beach.
Sights
On the whole, Varna’s attractions are interesting if essentially brief distractions. The Archaelogical Museum is held in high repute yet is currently hamstrung by renovation work, as is the Military Museum which is compensating for the closure of its main building by opening its grounds for free. Also located in the sprawling Sea Gardens is a well presented aquarium and a planetarium. The ominous appearance of the Varna Museum of History is a misnomer given the warm welcome afforded by the engaging multilingual host (I know now that the first winner of Miss Varna was Polish; previously I didn’t even know that there was a Miss Varna).
Perhaps the city’s most impressive site is The Dormition of the Theotokos Cathedral, a distinctive domed cathedral that dates back to 1886. In contrast, visitors to the Roman Thermae should possess a greater than average knowledge of archaelogy and/or a very rich imagination.
The beach
Most commonly accessed via the Sea Garden’s gate, Varna’s beach is long, sandy and densely populated. Despite the seemingly endless procession of primarily multi-purpose bars, clubs, restaurants and cafes, it’s low-key in comparison to the nearby Golden Sands.
Eat
For most visitors to Varna, the pedestrianised stretch of Knyaz Boris I to Slivnitsa (running from the city centre to the Sea Garden) and aleya Georgi Georgiev (parallel to the beach) are the most likely destinations to grab a bite to eat. The food on offer is primarily based around hefty salads, a variety of seafood and lightly spiced grilled meat, although there’s the usual range of international dishes too. It’s manageable for vegetarians but vegans would surely struggle for options.
Highly recommended is Pre Monahinite (At The Nuns), a restaurant set in a quiet churchyard. Some of the options are curious (a kebab encased in a thick pie of omelette, chicken hearts with butter, goat cheese drizzled in honey) but uniformly excellent.
The omnipresent Happy Bar & Grill is a more conservative option and pretty decent as far as chains go, its short-skirted, tight-topped waitresses dressed for maximum commercial gain. The terminally unadventurous can try the McDonalds opposite the Cherno More Hotel.
In most venues, main courses are unlikely to exceed 9 leva (£4) and can generally be had for far less. The most expensive course I ordered was a well executed 16 lev (£7.20) schnitzel at Bistro Europe.
Drink
Again tourists will generally be centred on the same areas as they’d eat in; roads away from the main drag offered very little in terms of other venues, especially in terms of places in which drink was the main or sole attraction. For the loudest clubs, head to the beach and follow your ears. Those seeking something a little quieter will struggle to find much that’s either open or atmospheric past approximately 11pm.
A personal favourite was Bar Saloon, one of the few examples of drinking-orientated bars on a quiet road just away from the main stretch. For more obvious seaside drinking, Pench’s is great fun, but be warned: anyone seeking to try each of the Guinness World Record cocktail list (currently consisting of 1227 drinks) may well suffer from an extreme and final hangover.
The Cherno More hotel site holds many further alternatives including an excellent first floor cocktail bar, a top floor bar which veers between chaotically busy and intimidatingly empty, and a disappointing wine club that seemed to shut up shop early due to a lack of custom.
I can’t claim any expertise on Bulgarian wine, so a brief guide to the beer. Stolichno stands out against the competition of cold Mythos style summer lagers such as Zagorka, Kamenitza, Ariana and Shumensko. You can get international brands at premium, in order of quality: Staropramen >>>>> Guinness >>>> Stella >>>> Carlsberg >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Tuborg.
A 500ml bottle or draft Bulgarian beer is generally priced between 1.90-3 lev (85p-£1.35).
Quirks and oddities
Animal lovers who can’t finish their kebapcheta won’t struggle to find a happy recipient for their leftovers with stray dogs and cats all over the place. The dogs are mellow, dopey types and the cats – sometimes missing an eye or a tail, almost always skinny and grubby if cute in their own way – scrounge for leftovers 24/7.
Saturday night karaoke at the Cherno More’s top floor is a surreal experience. Not only are the inhabitants apparently far wealthier than anyone else that you’d see throughout the day, but lesser able vocalists are complimented with a male and female vocalist, a piano player, and what sounds suspiciously like auto-tune. Surely no-one with an eastern European accent can possess the near exact timbre of James Hetfield’s growly croon?
Other nearby sites
Golden Sands is the most obvious destination for a brief upgrade from urban beaching, even if the resort itself is of the identikit type. Just a few miles away is the strange site of the Aladzha Monastery. It’s an impressive site, although one that might reprise questions about the sanity of monks.
Nesebar possesses a picturesque historic old town populated with churches and ruins that can be reached by bus or hovercraft (more on that later), while excursions or buses can take you anywhere from Sofia to Istanbul.
In conclusion
Varna is undoubtedly an enticing place which holds a range of possibilities for the tourist. At the same time, it’s hard to pinpoint exactly who it should be pitched to – beach bums would be better placed with a resort and it’s too small to really grab cultural enthusiasts. It’s a strong option for the niche that wants sunshine with big town / small city substance but even then somewhere like Rhodes city is a superior option.
It does have, however, have a lot of character from the slightly rough edges to the masses of locals who seem to take a stroll each night. Perhaps with fresh marketing, more prominent excursions and a greater emphasis on utilising its port history, Varna could take its appeal to the next level. Not that such a move would necessarily be welcomed locally.
