A WEEKEND IN SOZOPOL
by Marysia Plucińska
Definitely the most touristic place in Bulgaria is its seaside – with warm sea and beaches. We also wanted visit this place and we chose to go to Sozopol for a weekend. We chose Sozopol, because there are various things to do: there is of course the sea, but also it is very historical place with old monuments.
Being honest, most of our time we spend on the seaside as the weather was so warm and we had no energy for walking. But one afternoon we went to the Old Town. The funny thing is we thought we didn’t till we didn’t check in the Internet how it looks like. I need to say that it is not as old as I expected and a little bit disappointed.
In the area of Old Town we visited to places. One of it was Archeological Museum. It is not very big museum, however there are still some treasures which looks very interesting (especially one yellow plate which style was completely different than everything I saw before and I am really interested about culture it comes from). However I couldn’t learn much about them. The descriptions are all in Bulgarian and some general information are in Bulgarian and French. That was really surprising that there was nothing in English (after all it is international language, the most popular one).
The second thing we visited in Old Town was an Orthodox Church, where are relics of Saint John the Baptist. Firstly we were afraid that we will be unable to go inside as our clothing were not covering enough, however women working there were prepared for it and gave us a shawl to cover ourselves. That was really beautiful church, very colorful, full of paintings. Somehow I feel Byzantine part of Christianity finally become more happy, richer in art and traditions and more attractive for believers than Western world. Our churches are definitely more severe, dark and cold than ones here.
Except one afternoon (which is definitely enough) in the Old Town, we spend rest our time near the seaside. But there is also a lot to write about. For example we get surprised, but something what actually shouldn’t surprise us, but still – we didn’t think about it. Do you know what is one of the most beautiful views? Sunset above the sea. We really wanted to see one in Sozopol until… we realized it is impossible, because sea in Bulgaria is in the east and there will be never a sunset there! However next day we were able to see a moon around 11 am! Crazy sky in Sozopol! And crazy sun – we strongly don’t recommend spending too much time on sun as you can get burned even using strongest sun-cream! Instead of sun bath we recommend sea bath as the sea there is very clean and also there are not many sea animals.
The last thing about Sozopol – it is very good place for those who doesn’t speak English. I already mentioned that in the museum descriptions were in French. In restaurants you can find menus in German, Russian, Polish or Czech! This city is really prepared for tourists!