Travel China and Beyond

Visit to Etara - an Ethnographic Museum in the open - a working museum of arts and crafts from 18th-19th century Bulgaria

I am finally getting to the point of putting together a posting about one of the interesting architectural, cultural, and historic sites in Bulgaria — the open air museum ETARA. My family and I visited the location during our trip to Bulgaria earlier in August of 2007. The museum is located about 8 km (about 5miles) south of the town of Gabrovo. The location is essential in the northern slopes of the Balkan range near by the Shipka mountain pass.

The village demonstrates traditional Bulgarian artisan crafts and the tools and workshops used in the last couple of centuries in the Gabrovo region of the country. Some of the workshops’ tools are powered by water - essentially the old artisans diverted water from the near by rivers and powered tools like

• sharpening stones
• mill stones
• old style washing machines (for carpets, blankets, etc)
• wood working milling machines
• even a machine for weaving

The museum also demonstrates several styles of Bulgarian architecture as well as unique stone plate covered roofs. Also you can observe a roof implemented from half tree trunks interlocked by carving the middle of the trunks

Here are some images from the museum — you can see the houses and workshops / village streets, as well as the famous Clock Tower of the village (most bigger Bulgarian villages and towns of the 18th, 19th century had those clock towers in the village center/square):

At Old Village Etara in Bulgaria

While at the museum you can also purchase some actual crafts done by the local artisans — things like jewelry (my mother in law purchased a nice silver ring), rugs (kilim style), wood carvings, paintings, and of course some local delicacies.

Near by the entrance of the museum you can stop for lunch in the local hotel restaurant.  The food is very good - featuring traditional Bulgarian dishes and of course excellent beer.

Our visit to Veliko Tqrnovo (Велико Търново)

Well, following our stay at the Black Sea coast (we liked the Kempinski hotel no joking….it is a nice place), we decided to take the Northern Bulgaria route to get back to Kazanlak (on the South side of the Balkan range). That meant we were going to travel from Zlatni Piasqci –> Varna –> Shumen –> Veliko Tqrnovo –> to Gabrovo –> cross the Balkan range via the Shipka mountain pass, and arrive in Kazanlak. On this trip our main objective was to stop in the town of Veliko Tqrnovo.
Why stop there — well take a look at these photos and you will see the reason — it is a beautiful and historic place:

The town which used to be the capital of the 2nd Bulgarian Kingdom is located on several large hills on both sides of the river Iantra (река Янтра). The 2nd Bulgarian Kingdom lasted between 1185 and the end of the 14th century at which time the Ottoman Empire conquered Bulgaria. One of the key places to visit while in Veliko Tqrnovo is the restored fortress on the Tzarevetz hill.

(me at the gate of the Tzarevetz fortress)
Some directions of getting to Tzarevetz — we approached Veliko Tqrnovo from Shumen. As you enter in the city look for signs (in brown color — denoting a national park) for Tzarevetz. There will be plenty of those. Eventually you will pass through the new town and enter the older part of Veliko Tqrnovo. This is the more interesting part anyway, but the streets are quite narrow, so if you are driving pay attention to oncoming traffic. In some cases you will have to move to the side (behind parked on the street cars) and wait for the oncoming traffic to pass. Sounds tedious, but this is part of the fun

Once you get to the parking lot right in-front of the Tzarevetz fortress entrance you could visit a small restaurant located right in-front of you if your right hand shoulder is pointing at the entrance of the fortress. I cannot remember the name of the restaurant, but you won’t miss it — the parking lot is tiny. The fee for parking by the way should be in the range of 2 leva for 3 hours.

The fortress museum is open daily till 7pm. It is an interesting place to visit and also a place where you could do some serious hiking up and down the trail along the fortress walls or climbing the hill to the church on top of if. Here are some more photos from the town:

View towards the old town from Tzarevetz;

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…

More on the Rental Car Options in Bulgaria

Recently I was browsing through some of the travel Forums on-line and came across some strange information about car renting in Bulgaria.  Per the writings there “most of the car rental companies in Bulgaria used old cars and were fronts for foreign rental companies who did not want to reduce their rates….”… Yes, there are local companies that contract with Hertz or Alamo for example but Alamo in the US is clueless about their availability of cars in Bulgaria — I speak from experience. Two years ago I tried to rent from Alamo (I have tons of business with Alamo) and they promised me (reserved ) a car for me and gave me the contact info for their office in Bulgaria, then when my wife called the local office they had no record of any reservation etc.

I would recommend the car rental company. They even waited for us at the Airport when our flight from the States via London, was delayed by 10 hours! We arrived 1am in the morning…!!!

Rental Car Experience in Bulgaria

Last week we completed our trip in Bulgaria.  I will be posting material from that trip gradually, but in the mean time I wanted to post on our experience with car rental companies in Bulgaria.  This was our second time with renting a vehicle from Global Rent A Car — and the experience has been very positive.

If you are arriving by plane at the Sofia airport, Global Rent a Car will even wait for you at the airport.  This time around we had trouble with our connective flights in London (ended up flying from London to Sofia via Munich) and as a result we were delayed by over 12 hours — we landed in Sofia around 23:15.  A guy from the rental company was waiting for us though.

If you plan to rent a car, one option is to initially put the car on your credit card (for ease of handling the initial procedure) then upon completion of your rental you can pay by cash and get a 10% discount.

We rented a SUV vehicle and ended up paying 726 euro for a 13 day rental period. (That was after the discount for paying in cash)

Real Estate and Bulgaria — Going Up, Going Up…..

Over the last several years Bulgaria has become a magnet for many real estate buyers, retirees, real estate investors and speculators.  In 2006 my family and I visited Bulgaria and were surprised to find real estate agencies targeting specifically UK citizens for example — in the town of Bansko (Southwestern Bulgaria) there were a number of developers and agents promoting villas, apartments, etc. to buyers from the UK (and other Western European countries).  This year, the situation is continuing to progress.  Investors from the former Soviet Union republics, as well as Western Europe are driving prices up.
Some statistics (from mediapool.bg — published in the Bulgarian newspaper IMOTI):
Just in the last 3 months (April, May, June 2007) prices for apartments in Varna (on the Black Sea) have risen 3.9%
In Burgas (another big city on the Black Sea coast) — the increase is 4.1%
In Sofia — the increase is 3.8%
Average prices for apartments are:
Sofia   — US$1152 / square meter
Varna   — US$1196 / square meter
Plovdiv — US$771  / square meter
(These prices were calculated based on exchange rate of US$1 = 1.43 Bulgarian Leva)

Here I have listed the prices for the major cities in Bulgaria, but even the small and unknown cities like Haskovo, Stara Zagora, Gabrovo, Smolian, Silistra are exhibiting strong price increases — in the range of 6% - 8%.  Of course those increases are from a much smaller base, but they show the impact of increasing demand and focus from multiple sources of investors.

If you just consider the new construction and list / advertised prices, the prices are even higher.  I came across many offerings in the range of 580 Euro to over 1000 Euro per square meter (For reference 1 euro is 1.95 leva), so higher than the averages given by the statistics above.  A studio apartment in the Vitosha suburb of Sofia with area of 46 square meters has a starting price of 33600 euro!  That would be 730 euro per square meter ==> or about US$1000 per square meter ===> or US$100 per square foot!  How about that…?!?!

Bulgaria on multiple Travel Hot Lists/Destinations

To all readers Happy New Year!  Xin1 Nian2 Kuai4 Le4  新年快乐! Честита  Нова  Година!

The New Year usually brings a series of articles which include rankings and ratings on Travel Destinations, New cars, Best hotels etc.  So, just over the last couple of days I came across some new lists with such information.  It was interesting to find that both Bulgaria and China were listed in multple rankings as top destination for 2007 travel.

Several Web sites published such lists.  Here are a couple of examples:

News.com.au   — Has Bulgaria as one of the hot destinations (could not agree more )

Realbuzz.com — same thing — also show some very exotic places and Bulgaria is on that list too

Come to thing about it this blog has been getting its fair share of hits coming from searches on both Yahoo and Google for locations in Bulgaria and for general information on Bulgaria.  So these lists must be somewhat true people are seeking out information on that country.

Well, let me know what you think about such rankings.  I will try next to may be even create a poll on this blog to see what the readers’ opinion is on the subject.  Until then, Happy Travels!

Kazanlak - Next stop on the trip in Bulgaria

Kazanlak is located in the province of Stara Zagora, in the foothills of the Balkan range in Central Bulgaria. The travel time from Nessebar (on the Black Sea coast) to Kazanlak was about 3 hours (if traffic is not heavy as the road is a divided highway with one lane in each direction — thus passing could be tricky if you encounter slower traffic).

Kazanlak is famous for several things:

• The Thracian Tomb - a UNESCO protected site dating back to 4th century B.C. Here is a link to a detailed description of the architecture of the Tomb
• The Rose Festival and the Valley of Roses — the city is located in this famous rose growing region of Bulgaria. Based on information I heard in Kazanlak, the Rose Valley produces some 70% of the world’s supply of rose oil - essential component in perfumes;

Here are some images from the region of Kazanlak to give you some idea of the area and local color:

Entrance to the Thracian Tomb View of the old town of Kazanlak (from a hotel terrace)

view from one of the suburbs of Kazanlak Another vew from a hotel terrace

Near the town of Kazanlak is the Shipka mountain pass (a pass allowing you to cross the Balkan range and go from Northern into Southern Bulgaria). The Shipka pass is famous for a huge battle fought during the Rusia-Turkey Liberation War (1877-1878) - a war that lead to the liberation of Bulgaria. A big monument reminds the visitors of the fierce battle fought during July and August 1877. Today you can also visit a great chirch - Храм-паметник „Рождество Христово“
(in Bulgarian) which is a great example of East Orthdox (sometimes refered to as Greek or Bulgarian Orthodox) architecture. The village of Shipka (near-by where is the chirch) is several miles to the North-west of Kazanlak, while the mountain pass is high in the Balkan range (above Kazanlak) at about 1300 meters (4000 feet) elevation.

If you go to the mountani pass location you could also sample some “Bivolsko mylako” - yogurt produced from water buffalo milk. It is very good and rich tasting type of yogurt (you could also purchase just milk).

Aside from these monuments, you can just enjoy the beautiful mountains and country side and also visit a big dam (the Koprinka dam) on the bottom of which is the ancient town of Seuthopolis (currently under water but the local government is creating plans and gathering funds to uncover and preserve the ancient town and site. Here is a an image (courtesy of the local government - obshtina Kazanlak) of the project concept:

If you would like further informaton on this area of the country please contact us. Happy travels!

More on Nessebar, Bulgaria

What can I summarize about Nessebar?  I have visited the place more than once or twice in my visits back to Bulgaria.  As far as I understand, the town used to be a fishing village in the 19th century….The history of the place dates back way back to the Roman and Byzantine Empires.

Today Nessebar is one of the well developed beach resorts in Bulgaria.  You can find here both modern hotels as well as rent a room or a complete old house / villa.

If you rent a house/appartment, you can get deals in the range of US$50 (for 2 people renting an appartment in the new town) per day…or US$60 for 3 people for an appartment.  So you can get a good deal.

Then, there is the new trend — buying a holiday property in Bulgaria.  To give you some idea, a 2-bedroom appartment about 60 square meters / 600 square feet, will set you back about 40K euros.

At the same time a similar appartment further south along the Black Sea coast — in Sozopol (a place I like as well) will be slightly more pricey — at about 45K euros.

Then for a comparison you should consider a similar size appartment in one of he major cities of Northern Bulgaria - Pleven.  There the prices are in the range of 20K to 30K euros (approximately)….So, the Black Sea coast is a desirable place…

Next step on our trip — 4 day stay in Nessebar, Bulgaria

After leaving  Bansko  my family and I headed to the Black Sea coast.  The interesting thing about Bulgaria (in a very summary description form) is that you can experience the pleasure of hiking tall beautiful mountains and 5-6 hours drive later you could be at one of the many seaside resorts.  Our trip took us to the resort town of Nessebar located in the central part of the Bulgarian Black Sea coast (please see the map in the previous post)

We had booked an all inclusive stay at the Nessebar IFA hotel (I believe this was a German hotel chain).  The all inclusive meant meals and hotel rooms for all of us were included.

The hotel was located South of the old town of Nessebar in the newer section of town.  Nevertheless it was not far away (within 10 minutes driving) from the ancient (what used to be B.C. era — as I understand approximately 550 B.C.) town.  Here are some images from the town:

We stayed for 4 days and enjoyed both the sea beaches as well as the hotel pools and entertainment.  One of the afternoons we visited the old town (where the photos are from) but more of the time we spent relaxing on the beach or at the pool area.  Not bad after all…