Hotel Hawaii & Nessabur, Bulgaria

Advantages: Cheap, handy, pleasent and affordable.
Disadvantages: The flight

...Just returned from a holiday in Nessabur, Bulgaria, staying at the Hotel Hawaii in a bed and breakfast basis. The hotel building from the outside looked like any other block from communist days BUT our room on the 13th floor was lovely, a little basic but very spacious and looked like it had only just been upgraded. Our fridge was missing and so were chairs to sit on! A request at the reception saw a couple of chairs and a fridge delivered. The room was kept spotlessly clean, swept and floor washed every day, new towels at least twice a week, linen also changed. The power shower in its own cubicle with loads of hot water was a first! The breakfast was one of the best we have had for many years. Hot and cold buffet, tea, coffee, fruit. Admittably if you arrived at the last knockings say 9.50 when they stopped serving at 10am they...

Rogfrith 21.07.2008 (20.07.2008) · Read review
Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful
Review of Nesebar (Bulgaria)

Bulgaria - Sooner rather than Later

Advantages: cheap, interesting
Disadvantages: terrible coffee

...We decided to visit Bulgaria this year as it looked cheap, interesting culturally and likely to still be warm in October when we had to travel.Never having been to a Balkan country before it seemed like a good choice. We decided to base ourselves on the Black Sea coast and found a nice spa hotel in Nessebar (prefering to stay somewhere away from the crowds in Sunny Beach) The Nessebar Palace Hotel is a Bulgarian 5 star hotel about a mile from the village of Ravda. Our room was quite spacious with a super-king size bed, large bathroom,safe,mini-bar and balcony. However, after a couple of nights we had to ask to be moved because our room looked out over the road and was quite noisy. It was also north facing and did not benefit from the lovely sunshine in the afternoon. The second room was much better,looking out over the pool...

JMPL 16.11.2007 · Read review
Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful
Review of General: Bulgaria

Bulgaria-one of the most beautiful countries

Advantages: Amazing history, beautiful land and friendly people
Disadvantages: nope

...Hi everyone, Today I will tell you about my country and one of its amazing towns. When coming to Bulgaria, you step into another world, another time, and another culture. You will find friendly faces, a sense of history and tradition; enchanting landscapes are at every turn. Our vast sandy beaches, magnificent mountains, charming countryside with wonderful glades, forests and caves, impressive landscapes make Bulgaria a tourist destination worth to be experienced. The country has 36 cultural reserves, 160 monasteries, and some 40,000 monuments of culture, 7 of which are on UNESCO's world cultural heritage list. But one of the things we are the most proud of is our folklore, which has survived all challenges of history and social development as an expression of the nation's spirit and destiny. Festival days, traditional fairs...

KRISS2 25.01.2004 (27.01.2004) · Read review
Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful
Review of Koprivshtitsa (Bulgaria)

Skiing in Pamporovo,Bulgaria

Advantages: Value for money
Disadvantages: Unchallenging for advanced skiers; poor food

..., so that you and your group have the chance to go over technique, talk about Bulgaria and even pick up a few words of the language. Average group size seems to be around eight, and we enjoyed the mix of nationalities in ours (Bulgarian, Irish, English and Russian!). The three-man chair lift is efficient although queues can build up at peak times, the elderly single-chairs are somewhat scary for novices, and the button-drags and bar-drags are tiring. My son was unlucky enough to meet with an accident getting off a single chair, so I can report that the rescue caterpillar ambulance and the mountain-side fracture clinic are all reasonably efficient (although all services must be paid for locally, in sterling, and reclaimed from your insurance in the UK). On the plus side, we had (in February)three metres of snow, some days...

angidrew 09.05.2001 · Read review
Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful
Review of Rodopi Mountains (Bulgaria)

FANTASTIC BULGARIA

Advantages: Very cheap, friendly people, clean, lots to do
Disadvantages: Not enough toilets

...Just got back from Bulgaria on 12th July and have to say it was fantastic. Stayed at the Victoria Palace Hotel in Sunny Beach. This hotel has a 4 star rating and being Bulgaria I thought that the standards would be lower, but I couldn't have been more wrong. The hotel was amazing to look at, everything inside was co-ordinated and you could tell that money had been spent on the furnishings. The staff were friendly and spoke good english (among other languages), there was maid service every day, everywhere you looked there were people cleaning, the rooms were spacious. We had the half board option and have to say that the food was very good, lots of choice for both breakfast and dinner. The pool was something else, very big had two levels with fountains and a seperate area for small children. It has a pool bar and could not...

magicwackymouse 21.07.2004 · Read review
Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful
Review of General: Bulgaria

You don't know what you're missing!

Advantages: Compact, Affordable
Disadvantages: Communist architecture

...I've been living in Sofia since September 2004, so I've learnt quite a lot about it which might be of interest to any intrepid travellers out there who are thinking of going, or even better, may be I'll spark off a new interest in someone who's never previously considered it. A little history Bulgaria used to be a communist country and has the unusual accolade of being an ex-communist country that voted the communists back in once they got the free vote! Economically, it's had its ups and downs, particularly in 1996 when everything went haywire and the average standard of living plummeted. But things are on the up. Bulgaria is looking forward to probable EU entry in 2007, and this can only boost the economy in my view. For the visitor Sofia is not a beautiful city in the usual sense of the word. But it has a faded glamour...

Tricksty 15.02.2005 · Read review
Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful
Review of Sofia (Bulgaria)

Sun, sea, sweetcorn and swingers

Advantages: Nice beaches, good seafood
Disadvantages: A bit grubby, few facilities

..."We like very much to come here because the hotel has a roof terrace where you can be nudie" How do you respond when the Swiss couple sharing your table want to chat? How about when she says, blushing, "He says he wants to take me to bed"? Bernard and Marta (not their real names) are typical Sozopol holiday makers in that they perfectly fit the old-fashioned British saucy holiday postcard image. Sozopol may be in Bulgaria but its spirit is firmly entrenched in the working class English seaside resorts. Curious then that the area should attract so many Germans, Swiss and Czechs? Bulgaria is a hot destination right now - whether it be for property investment, cheap winter sports or summer sun bargains. We spent over three weeks in Bulgaria this summer, one week of which was a much needed break, hitting the beach at Sozopol...

fizzytom 31.10.2006 · Read review
Ciao members have rated this review on average very helpful
Review of Sozopol, Bulgaria

Sofia, so good!

Advantages: Great large town, that's compact and safe to explore
Disadvantages: Probably only enough for a weekend; the Cyrillic language

...For the first time theediscerning is hereby dabbling in foreign climes - no, not a first trip abroad, but a debut excursion into the esteemed realm of Ciao travel writers. That's what these competition thingies are for, of course. To start with, a smallish city both tucked away in the middle of Eastern Europe's old Soviet / Warsaw Pact areas, yet far enough away from us in the UK to have some of the mystery and oddity the near east brings - Sofia, the capital of Bulgaria. You will increasingly see this as a location for a long weekend holiday, for it is yet another fine eastern European city falling under the tourism industry's eye. With Bulgaria possibly entering the Eurozone in 2007, the urge is to go before it all gets changed. The history of the country is far too complex to summarise here, but just one corner of Sofia...

theediscerning 27.08.2005 · Read review
Ciao members have rated this review on average very helpful
Review of Sofia (Bulgaria)

Sofia so good!

Advantages: Not too busy, good value for money, green
Disadvantages: Not many "attractions", not much for children

...had found out in advance that few museums in Bulgaria have captions in English so we decided to think "outside the box". Sadly Sofia does not have any outdoor attractions close to the centre - by this I mean things life open air museums, cave cities, fortresses or huge monuments that require a twenty minute climb to appreciate. This probably would have suited us better; we were not in the mood (or the health) for stuffy museums and the other half will climb anything he thinks might have a good view from the top. Thwarted, we decided to make our mission to explore the central parks of the city: Sofia has three. South of the main shopping area is "Yuzhen Park" where you'll find the vast NKD National Palace of Culture: this is a huge building holding a multi-screen cinema, exhibition halls and concert halls. The park is pleasant...

fizzytom 24.08.2006 · Read review
Ciao members have rated this review on average very helpful
Review of Sofia (Bulgaria)

●Nessapoor●

Advantages: Nice Hotel and Nice Place During The Day
Disadvantages: Turns Evil At Night Time

...I thought I would tell you all about my experience of Nessabur, Bulgaria. Be prepared! ●GETTING THERE● I went to Nessabur, Bulgaria in July 2004 with my Mum, Dad and their 2 friends, Jacqui and Brian. We flew with Balkan Airlines, and for me, my Mum and my Dad, it cost £1300 for half-board. We were booked to stay in a hotel in Nessabur, named Hawaii Hotel. We set off 3 days after my 16th birthday, so I remember it was the 19th July, in case you wanted to know. Anyway, we had a mid-morning flight, which took 4-5 hours, so we arrived in Bulgaria about 12pm their time. The flight was fine, but I am not reviewing the airline, so I won't describe the service and so on. Anyway, when we landed, we got straight onto a coach which took us over to the airport, which was only about 30seconds away! There was no smoking...

JulyBunny 16.06.2005 · Read review
Ciao members have rated this review on average very helpful
Review of Nesebar (Bulgaria)