Sunny side up

Bulgaria has a bit of a reputation for being invaded. First, there were the Thracians, then the Romans, the Slavs, the Turks... the list goes on, ending with the Soviet takeover after the Second World War.

Now this largely unknown country is positively falling into the arms of its latest conquerors - the tourists.

Mainly the preserve of the Bollinger Bolshevicks in the communist era, the Black Sea coast of Bulgaria has been on the tourist map since the 1960s, but it's only since the restoration of democracy in 1989 and the lifting of the visa entry requirement that the tourist industry has really flourished. Some might say that awakening has not come without a price - witness the serried ranks of high-rise hotels on the Costa-style strip of Sunny Beach, the destination of most UK visitors - but it is still possible to find quieter resorts where you can get a better insight into this quirky corner of Eastern Europe.

We stayed just outside Nessebur, an historic and touristy town sitting out on a small rocky island and connected to the mainland by a narrow artificial isthmus. A Unesco World Heritage Site, Nessebur flaunts its ancient history alongside a highly-charged commercial facade with breathtaking ease.

Every evening the tiny town becomes a mecca for hundreds of holidaymakers who promenade in the wonderfully warm evening air into its winding cobbled streets. Once you've run the gauntlet of the restaurant touts, the highly suspicious 'religious charity' collectors and the lines of brightly-lit stalls selling all kinds of tourist tat, you can find oases of peace in some of the Byzantine-influenced churches - there used to be 40 and most are now ruins. Many are art galleries and museums, but the wide open interior of the 6th century Basilica, which juts over the town centre, is used by local children as a football pitch, balls bouncing off the ancient walls.

Don't be put off by the glad-handing restaurant guys. The choice of places to eat is bewildering and although most seem to offer the same selection of maybe a dozen or so dishes (it's said there are only two types of food in Bulgaria - traditional Bulgarian food and pizza) it is delightfully unfussy and really good value for money. A typical evening meal for two with a bottle of wine will cost less than £15. And the fish at the quayside restaurants is so fresh it's still twitching.

Our hotel, the Marina Palace, was built in 2004 in the style of an ocean-going liner with a rooftop swimming pool and sun deck overlooking Nessebur South Bay. Its striking steel and glass construction, with a glass lift on the outside of the building, makes it a landmark along the coastline.

Spacious and well-appointed, with a - thankfully - very good air conditioning system, the hotel is something of a style icon. It certainly makes the most of its position, with a dining terrace, French Riviera style, catching the attention of the passers-by.

Our first night's dinner at the hotel came with an interesting introduction to the Bulgarians' rather functional, if patriotic, attitude to wine.

Asked if we would like something to drink with our dinner, we naturally asked for the wine list.

"All our wines are Bulgarian," said our waitress. "Red or white - eight lev, 15 lev or 25 lev."

Well, we went for the 15 lev (about £5) and it was excellent.

It would be easy to while away your days by the hotel pool, watching the activity in the bay, but with the wonderful sandy beach only a few minutes' walk away, it would be a shame not to catch some rays by the sea.

The relatively small beach at Nessebur does get pretty crowded though - even more so in the 'free' area. Everywhere else you have to pay five lev for the dubious comfort of sitting on a plastic sunlounger. A parasol is extra. They're catching on quickly to the Costa mentality, it seems.

But the beachside cafs are a delight: cheap and cheerful with a fairly standard menu of fish, omelettes, lots of cheese, including some deep fried varieties, and the ubiquitous shopska salad - chunks of cucumber, tomato and onion piled high with feta cheese - you can lunch very well for about £4 for two, and that's including a couple of beers.

And, as we went back to the same caf more than once, we got a loyalty bonus - a shot of vodka, grenadine and orange juice - heady stuff in the middle of the day.

The Black Sea coast is obviously very prosperous - every other car is a BMW, Audi or Range Rover (the other being a clapped-out Lada), but in the countryside it's a very different picture.

Bulgaria's economy has taken a nosedive over the past few years with average earnings dropping so dramatically that many older people feel they were better off red than led into democracy.

We took a day trip to the Blue Mountain, a journey that took us through some of the vast agricultural plains of a countryside seemingly locked into a post-communist time-warp.

After the Soviets moved out, the farmland, which had been taken into state ownership, was to have been returned to its previous owners. Unfortunately, many of those had died, in some cases people couldn't remember who owned what and, even if farmers did reclaim their land, many cannot afford the machinery to work it. So hundreds of acres lie idle and, eerily, the factory-like buildings of the collective farms stand abandoned and derelict.

The villagers seem to have reverted to a peasant economy, with each household self-sufficient with its vines, vegetables, chickens and goats. And, in every community, a shepherd tends the village sheep, moving silently, and timelessly, across the unclaimed acres.

Our trip took us through miles upon miles of beautiful hardwood forests to the Stara Planina (Old Mountain) range, which, although not particularly high, is vast, extending almost the length of the country. The area is mainly famous for being the hide-out of Bulgaria's anti-Turkish rebels, the Haidouks, who lived in the rocky hills from the early 18th to the mid-19th century.

Just outside Sliven, a rather grim industrial town still bearing the scars of post-Sovietism in abandoned factories and defaced concrete monuments, you can take the alarmingly rickety wooden chairlift to the Blue Mountain for a ten lev return trip and an amazing view of the vast - and mainly empty - countryside.

Then it's back to the air-conditioned coach, driving past Roma working in the fields where everything is done by hand and donkey carts take home the produce, to the in-your-face 21st century commercialism of the tourist hotel-stacked coast.

Bulgaria is a country of stark contrasts - of frescoed monastries and Byzantine architecture to Soviet blocks of crumbling concrete flats, of burgeoning wealth and grinding proverty. And it's also a country in waiting - there's an air of expectancy of better things to come, and come they will with the magic ticket to the European Community in 2007. Now it's on the cusp of change - go now before it goes over the edge.

TRAVELFACTS

* Peta King and her partner travelled with Balkan Holidays to Bulgaria and stayed at the four star Marina Palace Hotel in Nessebur. Prices for one week during July start from £470 per person including flights from Newcastle and transfers (2006 prices start from £492 per week). For more information and to make a booking call 0845 130 1114 or visit www.balkanholidays.co.uk

* The Lonely Planet guide to Bulgaria (£13.99) www.lonelyplanet.com