The nearby resort of Golden Sands and a little further away, Sunny Beach draw the main tourist crowds during the summer. It is the second largest Orthodox Cathedral in the country and one of the most famous in the region. Cathedral of the Assumption of the Virgin, Varna.
These Roman baths used to be the biggest on the Balkan peninsula and the largest outside of Rome. You can see a sign in the background of the photo advertising a dolphin show. I strongly suggest NOT going there, or to any other similar animal tourist attraction anywhere in the world. It is cruel. The sea garden runs parallel to the beach and is as popular with locals as it is with visitors.
The gardens also have a kind of library where you can take a book, leave a book. There are plenty of small restaurants and small cafes where you can enjoy a drink or have a meal and watch the world go by. The stone forest or stone desert is known locally as Pobiti Kamani. I found out about it in the morning and the same afternoon had arranged to visit. Even though he was local, the taxi driver had never been to the stone forest so he enjoyed it too! Despite it being a bank holiday in Bulgaria Unification Day , I was surprised at the lack of people there.
Once out of Varna the road to the desert is long and straight. The desert consists of sand dunes and several groups of natural rock formations on a total area of 13 square kilometres. The formations are mainly stone columns between 5 and 7 meters high and from 0.
The columns do not have solid foundations, but are instead hollow and filled with sand, and look as if they were stuck into the surrounding sand, which gives the phenomenon its name. The Stone Desert is not only a well known European tourist attraction due to its desert like habitat, but it is one of few places where desert type vegetation such as cactus are known to grow. A large sandy beach is easily accessible on foot from central Varna.
