ALTEA Albena

... world championships, and national
events in several sports on a regular basis, including auto racing and
motocross. Bulgarian national basketball and volleyball teams host
their games, including Volleyball World Cup games ...

... simple bureaucracy and in Ian's case,cheap alcohol. However sightings of the aforementioned Brits are about as common as that of the long-necked-Bulgarian-crocodile shrew. It would appear that satellite television, supermarkets and a U.K income prevent them from coming out to play.

Ian and his good-natured Rottweiler arrived in November and were
quickly joined by a deaf Dalmatian called D.D. D.D was to be shot due
to her deafness, though with the amount of ...

... There were crops planted but we saw only a few cows and sheep with what looked like a shepherd in attendance at one point. Here was the impression of utilitarianism which seems to be the inevitable consequence of being post-communist, an impression reinforced by our travels in Ukraine and even more so in Sochi a few days later. There is a blunting of public joie de vivre and a grimness of public attitude which must reflect the oppressive ...

... She tries to visit once a year and I begged her to let me tag along. She was gracious enough to conceed and we had a wonderful time.

Her husband Rick was very jealous that he could not get away from work to join us, the beaches were wonderful the weather mild, and the prices cheap. We were in heaven.

A very nice place and quiet resort, is ideal target for family with kids, food and drinks very cheap and the people are friendly. About the security reasons I saw all the time the officers from Security companies -armed- and Police patrols on the street, here you need just to choose the proper location and enjoy the time.

Oh Varna.

Life passes in a haze of beachy days and beach bar-y nights, and really there is not much else. After a week on the farm in Palamatsa, it's so nice to be here on the beach, relaxing with the hundreds of Brits, Aussies, Bulgarians, and even some Americans that find their way to Varna 'for a few days.' This is funny because so many people we met said, 'we came for 3 days and have been here for 3 months.' Woah guys, it's nice, but there are other nice places too ...

... strong of a word, the door was opened by someone. Into the common room we finally found ourselves, "Hi". No answer from the locals. Well great this seems like a really great place. In writing you may not be able to tell that this was sarcasm. Both toilet/showers were busy so even though we both needed to go to the bathroom we had to wait to use the filthy things. Finally Dave the owner showed up ...

11th June

Nessebar to Golden Sands (near Varna) Bulgaria

Sunny 30 degrees

We left lovely Nessebar and drove north to the seaside resort of Golden Sands, near Varna. We knew it was going to be difficult to find the hotel as we only had vague directions and no GPS map for the area. We thought we were in the right area and asked our first local for directions who told us that there had been a landslide ...

Due to the Cold War being over and the world seems to a much more settled place now, Russia has an over abundance of FSB officers with nothing to do. So, as not to have them wandering about the workplace with nothing to do, the Russian Government has rented out these ...

... restaurant on the beach and then made our way back to the car. Went for drive after that through Varna city centre, grabbed some lunch and went for a walk along the garden boulevarde that follows along the coastline. Even had one Bilgarian recognise me from working with the Stella Maris in Australia though I could not actually place him, I must have made some sort of impression on him so that he remembered me. Finally got some nice ...