Burgas: beaches and salt pans on the Bulgarian Black Sea

Bulgaria's main port on the Black Sea, Burgas combines urban beaches with protected salt lagoons where thousands of migratory birds nest.

The center, between beaches and salt lagoons on the Black Sea, can be comfortably visited on foot.

The Burgas Maritime Garden, a coastal park among the largest in eastern Europe, extends for kilometres along the city beach.

A few minutes away, the Atanasovsko Lake, a protected natural reserve, hosts active salt ponds dating back to Roman times and one of Europe's northernmost colonies of pink flamingos.

Continuing along the coast you reach Sozopol, an ancient Greek colony with a wooden historic centre facing directly onto the Black Sea.

As evening approaches, the pedestrian centre of Burgas comes alive with cafés and restaurants in the city's main square.

The salt pans of Lake Atanasovsko have been exploited continuously since Roman times, making them among the oldest salt production facilities still active in Europe, today also a protected nature reserve for migratory birds.

Sozopol, founded by Greek colonists from Miletus in the seventh century BCE under the name Apollonia, remains one of the most continuously inhabited ancient centers on the Bulgarian Black Sea coast, with nineteenth-century wooden houses still occupied along the old harbor.