Bulgaria -- Our Overview

Bulgaria has an area of 110,000 Sq Km, making it about 50% the size of the United Kingdom and a population of 7.6m people. This makes Bulgaria the lowest density populated country in Europe.

Bulgaria is predominately a Christian country with 83% of its people belonging to the Bulgarian Orthodox Church.
The country escaped the political strife of its neighbours and, indeed, Bulgarians are known to be very tolerant of other religions. A study of the treatment of it’s 50,000 Jewish population during the Second World war gives a particularly good insight into the psyche of the people- http://www.adl.org/PresRele/HolNa_52/3099-52.asp - for short article.

Bulgaria boasts 354Km of coastline along the Black Sea with the largest cities along the coastline being Varna, in the north, and Burgas, in the south. The largest beach resort is Sunny Beach, just north of Burgas, which has been completely remodelled over the past three years. Heavy foreign investment in Sunny Beach has resulted in a summer resort to rival any in Europe and it attracts over 700,000 tourists in a season, drawn to it’s 8Km sandy beach and over 1700 hours of sunshine from May to October. Summer temperatures along the Black Sea reach 30-35 degrees C and cool offshore breezes make this area of Bulgaria very popular.

Travel time to the Black Sea coast, through the airports of Burgas or Varna, is an easy 2.5 hours from London and 3.5 Hours from Dublin.

So far, the Black Sea regions have escaped the ‘’ribbon’’ development so prevalent in Spain and Turkey. With strict building regulations in place development is being carried out in a sympathetic manner to the surrounding nature.
Only a few massive holiday complexes are in the process of being constructed. The current development of Golf, Marina, Hotel, Casino and holiday apartments outside of Pomorie being one of the biggest and most adventurous.

Bulgaria also boasts wonderful mountain regions, perfect for Eco-Tourism opportunities. The winter ski resorts of Borovets and Pamovero are well know to skiers. The Bulgaria Government, in an effort to boost tourism, is investing heavily to improve the ski resorts and develop new ones. Ski season is, in general, from December through to beginning of April. These ski resorts are also perfect holiday destinations during the summer for activity based mountain holidays.

Bulgaria enters NATO in January 2004 and EC membership targeted for January 2007. These two important events will see the once forgotten Bulgaria come into the mainstream.

Cost of living in Bulgaria, by Irish or UK standards, is incredibly low. House prices are amongst the lowest in Europe making Bulgaria exceptional value by our standards. See our list for examples of the property market.

There are many rumours of Ryanair and EasyJet looking to expand operations into Burgas and Varna. However, they remain rumours. One thing for certain is the expansion of the charter market into these airports and we sure it is only time before we see scheduled flights into either Varna or Burgas.

In general, Bulgaria is a beautiful country and deserves to be recognised for it’s Mountain regions, beautiful
Heritage Villages, cities as much as it is currently for it’s Black Sea resorts. It is a hidden gem amongst the countries of Europe. People who visit Bulgaria always want to go back, attracted as they are by the country, the people, the cost of living and the way of life.