Buying tickets twice in Varna

Hello everyone! Today I will be writing about our trip to Bulgaria. Bulgaria lays on the Black Sea coast in a South-Eastern Europe.

We flew out from Luton Airport to the coastal city of Varna, on Friday afternoon. By the way, if you are interested in how the cockpit of the Airbus A321 Neo looks like, you can see it here. Then, we took a bus from the airport to the city centre. We made a conscious decision to travel by public transport whenever possible as I think it allows us to see more of the places we visit as well as immerse in the local culture. Fare was inexpensive, at one Bulgarian Lev equating to approximately 50 eurocents which is just under 50p.

5 Bulgarian Lev

Sadly, Bulgaria is replacing their currency with Euro at the beginning of 2026 and during our visit most prices were displayed in both Lev and Euro.  

We stayed in a small but modern apartment in the heart of the old town.

During our first night there, before going to bed, I watched the Christmas classic, Home Alone 2 for the hundredth time. The next day, while we were walking in the old town, I immediately realised there was a huge number of cats everywhere. Every couple of meters, around every corner, on roofs – cats were everywhere. Some of them must have been pedigree ones. I have never seen so many felines in one place before.

We made another interesting observation while shopping in a local grocery store. At a check out in front of us there was a group of boys in their late teens buying some energy drinks. Each one of them reached for a wallet, counted coins and handed them to the cashier. That was in stark contrast to the UK where they would most certainly use cards or phones to pay.

The competition venue was located on the outskirts of Varna, called Владислав Варненчик – Romanised – Vladislav Varnenchik -or in Polish – Władysław Warneńczyk. This is in honour of the Polish king who on 10^th November 1444 commanded Crusaders in the Battle of Varna fought against Ottoman army, that took place in this location. King Władysław is said to have died in that battle.

Back to the recent times. The sports hall was great. It was modern, with lots of space and my dad said that the lighting was perfect for taking photos (see my Instagram page for those). I finished the competition in 2^nd place, after losing to a Bulgarian fencer, Iva Stoyanova in the final.

After the competition, we went back to our apartment to shower and leave the fencing kit. Then, we went out in search of a restaurant. And we found a traditional one, serving local cuisine. Both staff and food were amazing, and we will make sure to visit them again next time we are in Varna. In case you were interested, it was called Чучурите.

Чучурите restaurant in Varna

In the morning, we headed to a mass in Bulgarian at a local Church and surprisingly a lot of people there spoke Polish, even the priest! Roman Catholics are a tiny minority in Bulgaria which is predominantly an Eastern Orthodox country. Some online sources quote Catholics as making up only 0.7% of country’s population. There is only one Catholic Church in Varna. Call it what you like but the Church is of Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary, with the Feast of Immaculate Conception being celebrated on 8^th December and just by a coincidence we were there on the 7^th December.

After the mass, the priest invited us for a coffee and allowed us to leave our fencing bag in Sacristy so that we could travel lightly.

Ruins of Roman Baths in Varna

We went to see ruins of Roman baths (not much to look at honestly, at least through the fence as the gate was closed on Sunday) and then we made our way to the beach. Not surprisingly, when I was standing there and my dad was taking a picture, the Black Sea got a bit too unsettled, and I got soaked by a huge wave. Luckily, I had some spare clothes in my fencing bag and quickly changed as soon as we got back to the church.

Finally, we took a bus from the old town to the airport. Well, it was actually slightly more complicated than that. We bought our bus tickets online before boarding the bus. Immediately after boarding the bus, we got baffled by an elderly lady insisting we bought paper tickets. Unfortunately, we do not speak Bulgarian. It quickly transpired that there were two separate companies operating public transport in Varna and the service we boarded was not run by the company from which we had purchased our tickets. We ended up having to buy tickets again from that lady. Fortunately, it was not a costly mistake and we found the whole thing hilarious afterwards.

Varna Airport (with some Christmas decorations)

We were lucky to be visiting Bulgaria while they still had their own currency. To me it feels like they will lose part of their identity by switching to, what essentially is, a foreign currency. Varna seems to be a very safe and friendly place. Hopefully will visit again next year.