“Bulgaria 🇧🇬 ~The Stone Forest and The Black Sea”
We had some drive-time today, leaving Madara, to make it all the way to Nessebar on the Black Sea coast. Our main reason for coming to Bulgaria was for the Black Sea.
We had been near the Black Sea, back in our travels to Turkey, but we wanted to be on it, so here we are! Daryl drove today, and I dozed a little, so there are not a lot of photos; though there was nothing different on this drive day that we haven’t seen, before. Lots of beautiful wide-open farmland.
This area is called Pobitite Kamuni; the local name for the Stone Forest near Varna, and it still holds on to its secrets and mysteries, despite the numerous efforts by scientists to reveal how it was formed.
This place is the only natural formed desert in Eastern Europe.
We stop at the Stone Forest, which was on the way to our destination on the coast; in between Madara and Nessebar. We were still an hour or so from the coast, but here, we walked across a sandy area to check out the stones. We did not take hours to walk around the large area where these stones can be found.
We saw many Stones that were stump-like, but a few taller Stones, and we got the idea.
No one knows for sure how these stones came to be.Several theories and legends speculate over their formation. Scientifically, it is thought that the area was the bottom of a sea, at one time; like 50 million years ago, receded and the pillars were formed by organic or mineral processes.
According to another theory the Stone Forests are actually the remains of corals. Proponents of a third version are convinced the hollow columns are formed initially around fossilized tropical trees that rotted and left the columns with a hollow interior.
Others are sure that the structures are formed from natural gas sources, or that the Stone Forest is the core of rocks destroyed over time.
There are also legends about the Stone forest; called Pobitite Kamuni.
According to one such legend, giants brought the stones because they wanted to use them for the building of their Bulgarian capital, Pliska. Myths of course can not do without love, so another version tells of a young man to whom God revealed his name to, and gave immorality. But, God warned the lad that if he betrayed God by revealing his name to anyone, he would become mortal again. But, the young man fell in love on the beach with a fabulous girl, and he asked Marine Titans to help him win the lady’s heart. In return, they asked the boy to reveal the name of God. The lad was so in love that agreed. So the next morning he arranged the Titans in the field that is today near Varna and wrote with their bodies the name of God. The Lord was touched by the love of the young man and his sacrifice and froze the bodies of the Titans, and they can still be seen today, in the Stone Forest Pobitite Kamuni.
Along the Black Sea shores, there are several touristy places to stop and get rooms. Sunny Beach is very popular, but we chose to keep driving south, further down the coast, to Nessebar. There are suppose to be ancient and historical places to see here. We shall see.
In the mean time, we opted for two nights to “take a vacation” from our touring, to just relax, enjoy the beach, not drive long miles in the truck, and enjoy the cooler weather the shores are offering up.
We are in a nice hotel with a great view; a bit of a splurge, but this was planned.
The old town is on that island in the background
We are staying at The Mirage
Mr Terrific is very good about drawing me a bath with bubbles. He always knows just when, too. We do not get many tubs in our travels, so it’s quite special when we do
By going to Romania for ten days, it gave more time for the up-to-the-last-minute local vacationer in Bulgaria to enjoy the end of their summer at the Black Sea, and now the crowds are far less. Plus, we purposely timed this stop to be mid-week.
Time for dinner!
Traditional bread with yellow cheese
Dinner with a view
From Romania to Bulgaria: Ruse-Madara-Varna-Nesebur (Nessebar)
We could not ask for a single thing more.
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About Us
Hello and Welcome to our Travel Blog Website, We enjoy writing about our experiences and taking photos of our adventuring along the way. Our names are: Daryl and Pen, but Daryl calls me “Bunny.” We met, quite randomly, whilst both… Read More
Looks wonderful, enjoy your couple of days, still don’t know when we will be able to travel. Came up on memories that it was 12 months ago that I did the Tuscany trip xx
We will enjoy for sure. As the CDC changes our numbers in the US to ACTUAL COVID19 deaths, not the skewed numbers being reported, before, it appears the locking down of life and economy makes less sense. Our numbers went down to under 10,000 from 150,000 or something like that. What a shame
Tuscany is the only place in Italy we did not get to, lower than the north… we love Italy!