Varna, Bulgaria — Towns & Travel Guide

What is Varna known for?

Varna Province holds the busiest stretch of Bulgaria's northern Black Sea coast, and most travellers come for the sand. Golden Sands sits a short drive north of the port, one of the largest resort complexes on the whole shore, and the coast either side of it is one long ribbon of hotels and villa communities. The city of Varna anchors it all, part working seaport and part summer capital, where the Varna Necropolis yielded the oldest worked gold ever found.

Sun, sea, and deep history sit side by side.

Where is Varna?

Varna Province occupies the north-eastern corner of Bulgaria, where the land runs out into the Black Sea. The sea forms its whole eastern edge. Burgas Province lies to the south, Shumen to the west, and Dobrich to the north, so the province touches open water on one side and Bulgarian land on the other three.

Away from the shore the ground is not flat. Rolling plateaus fill much of the interior, part of the hilly country the Danube leaves behind, and the eastern spurs of the Stara Planina mountains push up in the south of the province. Water shapes the middle of it.

The Varna-Devnya valley cuts inland from the coast, holding the linked lakes of Varna and Beloslav, salt-water lagoons joined to the sea by canal that let ships reach the inland port at Devnya. Further south the Kamchiya river winds down through wooded country and reaches the Black Sea below the city, its mouth ringed by one of the longest beaches on the coast. Golden Sands lies just up the shore from the port.

The city of Varna sits where the lakes, the valley, and the sea all come together.

What is Varna like?

Varna the city gives the province its character. That character is maritime. It holds the headquarters of the Bulgarian Navy and the merchant marine, and the port has kept it looking out to sea for the best part of three thousand years.

The old Greeks knew it as Odessos, a colony planted here in the sixth century BC, and the layers only pile up from there: Roman baths still stand in the centre, among the largest the Romans built on this coast. Down the road at Devnya lie the ruins of Marcianopolis, a Roman provincial capital in its day. Summer is the other half.

When the season opens the coast fills with visitors from across Europe, and Varna throws itself into the Varna Summer festival, one of the oldest run in the country. The Sea Garden, the long park strung along the city's own beachfront, is where much of it plays out. Bulgarian is the everyday language, written in Cyrillic, and the cooking leans to grilled fish, fresh cheese, and the tomato-and-pepper salads of the Bulgarian table.

Work hard in winter, let loose in summer.

What is the history of Varna?

History here reaches very deep. The Varna Necropolis, unearthed in the industrial edge of the city, held gold worked in the fifth millennium BC, the oldest processed gold known anywhere on earth. Greeks from Miletus founded the colony of Odessos on the bay in the sixth century BC, and Rome, Byzantium, and the medieval Bulgarian state each held the port in turn.

The Ottomans took it in 1393 and kept it as a fortress and naval base for five centuries. The province itself is a modern administrative line, drawn up in 1999, laid over ground that has been settled and fought over for seven thousand years.

What is the climate of Varna?

The Black Sea sets the weather along the coast. The shore runs mild for Bulgaria, its winters softened and its summers cooled by the water, closer to a Mediterranean rhythm than the country inland. July and August are warm and dry, the sea itself warm enough to swim in through the long resort season around Golden Sands.

Push inland past the lakes and the plateaus and the sea's hand weakens, so Devnya and the interior swing to colder, damper winters and hotter, drier summers than the beach ever sees. The bathing months run late into autumn.

How do you get to Varna?

Most visitors fly straight in. Varna Airport sits just west of the city and fills through summer with charter and scheduled flights from across Europe, feeding the resort coast around Golden Sands. Trains and buses run down from Sofia and the interior, a long haul across the country to reach the sea.

The port handles cargo and the odd cruise ship rather than everyday passengers, so the airport does the real work of bringing people in. Once you land, the coast road ties Varna to the resorts strung north and south along the Black Sea.