Yes, we went to Sozopol and Sinemorets on holiday. Again. I
know, I know. We’re getting a bit stuck in our holiday ways as we get older.
Every year we say, ‘Let’s go somewhere we’ve never been
before. Albania! Macedonia! Georgia!’ Yet we nearly always trundle off down the
motorway to Sinemorets. There’s just something very lovely about going back to
a place you know so well, it feels like coming home. I blame my parents, for taking me on the same (albeit wonderful) Isle of Wight holiday every year
when I was a kid.
Sozopol
We’ve only ever been to Sozopol in June, when it’s fairly
quiet, so we were shocked at how much of a resort
it is later in the summer. There were holidaymakers everywhere. We even saw shirtless English men walking around
grumbling about how the food in every restaurant was the ‘same old, same old’. *shudder*
Luckily, we were only there for a night, and were in a very
quiet little guesthouse in the Old Town. I mean, Sozopol is gorgeous, and it’s
always worth a visit. But maybe go in the off-season.
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| Pretty Sozopol Old Town. |
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| Old-timey (and totally-safe-I'm-sure) wheelchair ramp. |
Sinemorets
Ah, sweet little Sinemorets. Just a random little village by
the sea, a few kilometres from the Turkish border, where half-built hotels sit
on windy cliffs overlooking gorgeous sandy beaches. If that sounds a bit
strange, it is. There’s not much to do there other than enjoy the beaches and sip
G&Ts overlooking the water. It’s my idea of heaven.
We noticed there are more and more Brits coming to
Sinemorets now. But the resort is still sleepy and largely unchanged from when
we were last there two years ago. There’s now a supermarket, which is
convenient. (Even if it was randomly blaring out really loud rap music. I was a
big rap fan in my teens, but it’s definitely not conducive to shopping. You try
choosing a suitable box of tampons in what feels like a really aggressive, well-lit
nightclub.) And, to our utter delight, a craft beer shop has opened by the
village square. Otherwise, the place was pretty much the same. (‘Same old, same
old,’ as some miserable fuckers would say.)
If you go to Sinemorets, maybe avoid Butamyata beach. It’s beautiful
and clean and has fun watersport stuff, but it’s the busiest beach in the
village by a mile. We prefer the northern beach, the one where the Veleka River
empties into the Black Sea. Stunningly beautiful, very quiet and charmingly
European, with plenty of naked penises enjoying their day in the sun.
Lipite beach (reached by climbing up over the rocks at the
end of Butamyata beach and taking the cliff path for about 15 minutes) is also
quiet and wild. Again, no clothes required.
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| Our favourite beach, with the Veleka River on one side and the Black Sea on the other. |
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| Windsurfers on the river. |
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| I'm definitely not A Dog Person, but even I find dogs at the beach irresistibly cute. |
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| A drink with a view. |
Anyway, that’s our fun-in-the-sun over for 2018. Next year, next year, we’ll definitely go somewhere
new. The Albanian coast, maybe. Lake Ohrid in Macedonia, perhaps. Or possibly
hiking in Georgia. But, to be honest, Sinemorets is already calling us back…
