bulgaria: burgas

After my trip to the states this summer, I had about a week before work started for my next school year. After spending time looking at various flight options, I ended up booking flights to Burgas, Bulgaria. Since I flew using wizzair, I actually had two flights each way, spending a day in Budapest on either side of Burgas.
I know it sounds ridiculous, but I'd never heard of Burgas, and booked flights anywho.
Burgas is a beach resort town on the Black Sea coast of Bulgaria. It's not s stunning town, nor is the beach stunning, but I didn't care.
My flight left Budapest really early, I arrived in Burgas around 10am. The lady at the passport control counter asked why I was there, and seemed surprised that I wanted to spend time on the beach. Isn't that what most visitors do in this area?

I found an atm in the airport, thank goodness. Bulgaria is part of the EU, but it is not part of the schengen zone (which meant I got another passport stamp even though I was flying within the EU,) nor the euro zone. Bulgaria uses the lev as currency. Currently $1USD~1.75lev.
The lady selling tickets on the bus was not happy when I handed her a 10lev note to pay for a 1lev ticket, but that's what the atm gave me, I had nothing smaller. The bus took me to within a couple blocks of my hotel, yay!
The guy managing my hotel was NOT happy to see me at 1100. He was downright cranky. But I had no control over flight times, and I'm sure I wasn't the first person to arrive early. He didn't want to let me leave my pack, or let me use a bathroom. Fortunately, I guess I looked pathetic enough, he let me in for a few minutes. I changed into beachwear, grabbed a towel, and left my pack.

After wandering for about 30 minutes, I found a place to have brunch/lunch. I think it was called happy grill, or something along those lines. Service was fast and good. After dawdling a little (using free wifi) I made my way to the beach. To get there I had to walk through part of a park, it was very landscaped.
The beach was far from stunning, but I didn't care. To some degree, a beach is a beach to me. If I can lay out and soak up sun, I'm generally happy. The sand was medium coloured, if that makes any sense. There were small waves, and I had to go out a way to get to an area deep enough for chest dee water.
On the way back to my hotel after the beach I got a smoothie, yum. I really need to stop snacking this way.
Upon checkin, the same manager was working, but he was in a much better mood. He offered me my room at a lower rate, and the chance to move into something better the next three nights, at a lower rate than what I'd originally booked. Sold.

After relaxing for a while, I went out for dinner. I found a sushi restaurant, a bit out of the way. They didn't get my order right, but the food was good. After eating, I walked the entire length of the two pedestrian streets, just because I could.
The routine I just described is what I did for the following three days...wake up slowly, find breakfast somewhere, beach time, relax a bit, go for a walk, find dinner.
After the beach the last day I walked through the rest of the park, it was very long. Not wide, just long. At one end I found a special exhibit, sand sculptures. Lots of fun to look at them for a while :)
The last night I found a church listed on a couple travel apps. This was one of the few sights listed for the town. Go figure, it was being renovated, there was a construction fence all the way around. Oh well.

I wouldn't mind coming back to this area, but the next trip will involve more exploration of other towns along this coast.
It was easy and convenient to take the bus back to the airport and fly back to Budapest.