You maybe wondering what on earth possessed me to buy an apartment in Bulgaria?
Well to cut a long story short, I was working with a colleague whilst I was at Eynsham Hall, Evelina was from Bulgaria and one of the sweetest people I had the fortune to work with.
She was very passionate about her country, the people and of course the traditions, I admired the fact that even though the Bulgarian language was very different from ours with a Cyrillic Alaphabet (believe me it's very strange to read and harder to write!) she still managed to come over to England, get a job in a busy conference office, understand and use our language!
She missed her country, family and friends and would often tell me about Bulgaria over the many coffee breaks we shared.
She told me that her country had applied to join the the European Union and that she was hoping that it would be successful in the application as previously it was under Reformed Communists leadership.
I'm not going to go into the politics of Bulgaria (you will be pleased to know) but it was all positive for Bulgaria to join the EU and in doing so meant that foreign investment could be pumped into the country and new developments could take place to include new holiday complexes being built along the Black Sea Coast.
This brings me neatly onto why I purchased the apartment, Evelina suggested that I should visit The Black Sea Coast, she in fact had an aunt who owned a guest house in Sunny Beach, and it was arranged that I visit and see for myself the country and the resort
I stayed in a beautiful guest house on the sunny beach resort and was very surprised how hospitable her aunt was even though she didn't know a word of English her and her family were very welcoming and tried their hardest to communicate.
I was taken aback how lush and green the country was, there is an abundance of different flowers and fauna, although the country has some very hot summers they too have the four seasons so the country is not arid and dry unlike the Mediterranean.
Much of the country is like an open air museum of Balkan culture, with beautifully decorated churches, fine mosques, wonderfully preserved rustic villages and a great deal of enduring folklore. The mountainous interior makes it one of the top hiking and skiing destinations in Europe, on the black sea coast, the white sand beaches are just as magnificent in reality as they look in the tourist brochures.
I soon found out that although the 7miles of resort making up sunny beach, typical of our Blackpool resort, the nearby coastal resorts of nessebar and ravda offered a typical Bulgaria, fishing villages with local restaurants and tavernas offering some fantastic food and local spirits, also local shops selling various souvenirs from Bulgarian lace to rose toiletries that are famously produced in the Bulgarian mountains.
Whilst I was over there I thought I would investigate the opportunity of looking at buying an a apartment, after seeing about half a dozen I fell in love with the studio apartment located in between ravda and nessebar, I didnt want to be too close to sunny beach and the noisy crowds, and the apollon apartment was close enough to the main tourist sites without being on the doorstep, so I purchased the studio apartment in the apollon 2 complex in 2006.
My New Years resolutions was to now start to give my friends and family the opportunity to enjoy the country of Bulgaria and the Black Sea Coast as well .
Amanda x
