Travel China and Beyond

Varna, Golden Sands, Kranevo area of the Black Sea Coast - useful information

If you are planning a trip to the North part of the Black Sea coast chances are you will be visiting the Golden Sands area. My family and I just spent several days in the area and wanted to give you some input on:

* Ways to get to the area (via Car)

* Places to Eat (and which to avoid)

* Hotel info

We embarked on our journey to Varna and Golden Sands from the area of the Valley of Roses (the city of Kazanlak). We started driving towards Burgas - our plan was to travel via Nessebar (we had planned to meet someone briefly in Nessebar). Along the road, once you approach the town of Karnobat you will get on a nice new divided highway. As you travel along you need to pay attention for the signs for Varna, Sunny Beach. That exit will be about 20 miles after you get on the . We missed the exit and had to turn around and travel about 15 miles before we can find an exit to turn back towards Burgas.

Once you exit you will travel for about 3 miles on a small road, and eventually you will see signs for Sunny Beach. This is a small road as well (in not very good repair) but it will save you tons of time (if you end up going to Burgas and then heading North to Ravda and Sunny beach it won’t be the end of the world but you will have a lot more traffic congestion)

After Nessebar and Sunny Beach the highway starts going through the Balkans — you need to cross the mountains on your way to Varna and Golden Sands. You should plan on one and a half hours at least from Sunny beach to Varna.

We had reserved room in the Kempinski hotel in the Golden Sands resourt. Here is a map to its location

The hotel is one of the three Kempinski locations in Bulgaria. Last year we stayed in the Kempinski in Bansko (here is a link to my blog entry from last year). We were very happy with the hotel last year so, why not , we decided to be guests of the chain again…..

The hotel is very nice, the grounds are beautiful, just one word of caution, the included breakfast (included in the room rate) is not that great. Turns out all rooms have the breakfast included. As a result it is relatively generic one — eggs, hams, cheese, bread, vegetables, juice….but not the best quality. It is filling just not that exciting. The breakfast at the Bansko hotel was much better.

Some photos from the Kempinski   
With regard to place to eat (outside of the hotel) you may want to avoid the promenade just between the Kempinski and the beach. There are plenty of restaurants there but they are just overpriced and not that good. Yes, they are convenient (if you need to have a quick bite at lunch while near the beach), but in the evening you may want to head to Varna or to near by Kranevo (north of Golden Sands).

Here is a good restaurant — Restaurant Milev. To find it just head along the road towards Kranevo, Albena, Balchik. It will be on your right hand side in a restored old house a few hundred yards after you enter Kranevo.

Here are some pictures from it:        

All in all we had a pretty good time in the area.  Spend three days at the beach, managed to see some of the surrounding area, had good food…  Following the stay at the Golden Sands we decided to return to Kazanlak via the Northern route — Varna to Shumen to Veliko Tqrnovo (the capital of the second Bulgarian kingdom), to Gabrovo and across the Shipka mountain pass to Kazanlak.   More on that and of course great pictures from Veliko Tqrnovo in the next posting.  Stay tuned…