Отдых в сентябре 2012 года Vacation in September 2012

We were in Bulgaria for the first time, before that we were in Montenegro (five years ago), even earlier in the Crimea and in Sochi, my 4-year-old daughter was at sea for the first time in her life. For principled reasons, we decided to go as unorganized tourists, i. e. worries about booking a hotel, obtaining visas, buying air tickets, etc. org. questions fell on our shoulders with my wife, because I did not want to pay the agencies, which then hide somewhere with the clients' money. I will say right away that this did not cause much concern, in the modern world all such issues are resolved quite quickly and conveniently.
Why they chose Bulgaria - because of the sandy beaches, convenient for small children (in Montenegro, this was difficult, there is either pebbles and a large stone, or an artificial beach, but made of finely ground stone, which is also unpleasant even for adult feet without shoes), plus relatively fast air travel. Sochi, Anapa and Crimea fell away because of the level of service, which is clearly not worth the money that they ask for it.
Why Sozopol was chosen - I liked that the city has a history (there is something to see) and is relatively small. At the discos, my wife and I have already caught everyone with our squirrels in pants, our daughter is still small, the eldest son did not go because he studied at the university, and we wanted a quiet, relaxing holiday with the possibility of walking, etc.

Why did you choose the hotel "More" - according to reviews and feelings (intuition). But the choice of the country, and the city, and the hotel, and the option of traveling by "savages" fully justified themselves.
Air tickets were bought at AK "Sibir" for a regular flight (round-trip for three about 47 thousand rubles), its planes fly quite regularly to the AP "Burgas", from where Sozopol is within easy reach. I also paid for the tickets with a Visa salary card directly on their website, received electronic tickets by mail, printed them out. We bought life and health insurance at RESO (1.5 thousand rubles for three).
Since tourism is unorganized, the embassy needs confirmation of income and the availability of the required amount for each traveler. I got a certificate from work indicating my salary, my wife has a bank statement confirming a deposit for a decent amount, and for my daughter, the embassy asked my wife to write a sponsorship letter right at the visa center. In general, visas were given without problems.
We took off with a delay of 1.5 hours, because after boarding the plane (Boeing 767), it turned out that some electronic unit was out of order. While they were trying to fix it, then they changed it to a serviceable one, time passed, the children began to slowly start up. But they arrived with a delay of only 0.5 hours, apparently they caught up in flight.

Everything about the hotel is very good, the attitude of the owners is as if they came to visit close relatives, the room is neat, cleaning every day, my daughter slept on a separate sofa, my wife and I on a double bed (two bedside tables nearby). There is a coffee table in the room, an electric kettle with glasses (in the mornings they drank coffee on the balcony, tea or wine in the evenings, you can ask Dimcho for an opener, for watermelons / melons you can ask Dimcho Gali’s wife for a large plate with a knife), a refrigerator, a large chest of drawers with a huge a mirror, a small TV with three Russian channels, but if they watched anything, then almost all the time only cartoon channels in Bulgarian - my daughter’s lack of knowledge of the language was not a hindrance in this matter : -) But basically we spent the whole day outdoors: the beach on the sea , an open veranda of a cafe, a swimming pool in a hotel, a promenade along the street. Ropotamo, jumping on inflatable or simple slides, etc. They came home only to change clothes, take a shower or sleep in the evening.
We didn’t get into the sweltering heat of July-August, a couple of times the weather deteriorated a little, and on the eve of departure it was even cool (in the afternoon +15 somewhere), but on such days we rented a car and went to Varna (you can not drive, dolphinariums in Moscow it’s better, at least the one that used to be on the Semyonovskaya metro station - it’s better by two orders of magnitude, and the trip will take all day), to Nessebar (I didn’t like its old town, it’s all mercantile, in Sozopol the old town is better - quiet, beautiful, you walk for pleasure), but you can go for a change, especially since it is not far. There is also a water park, but we did not get there because of the cool weather that day - it is under a clear sky and the water is not heated. In Burgas itself, in our opinion, Carrefour at Burgas Plaza deserves a visit. The store itself is essentially our Auchan, but there are interesting stores: shoes from Botticelli, inexpensive and high-quality, and we also got on sale, a children's toy store (daughter on the day of jam asked me to buy a doll family: dad, pregnant mom with an opening tummy and a baby in it, a little girl in a stroller) and the very best is animation for children. For the children of parents-buyers, a children's town was created there, from which we hardly pulled our daughter out only after three hours. This pleasure for children and convenience for parents costs 7 Lev / hour (about 140 rubles) - we recommend it to parents with kids!
Another day was spent on a trip to Plovdiv and the Bachkovo Monastery. Picturesque places, a monastery in the mountains, in Plovdiv we saw an amphitheater from the times of ancient Rome, we saw a monument to Alyosha on the mountain (the current youth no longer knows, but my wife and I still remember the song, we learned it at school) - the monument stands. But there was little time for sightseeing, because. the road is long - about 250 km one way, and maybe a little more. We swept along the local autobahn - nothing like our New Riga or Simferopolka in parts of the Moscow Region, only the road surface is newer.
Very expensive gasoline, the 95th for ours is about 55 rubles / liter. They took an Opel Corsa 1.2 liter, a good car, economical, but still, after driving about 1100 km in total, they spent about 4 thousand rubles. with our money. It is better to pay for refueling with a bank card, because. In Bulgaria, you fill up first, and then you pay.

In Sozopol itself, you can go to the Old Town, it is quiet, beautiful, various sea souvenirs (shells, crabs, etc. ) are sold, but little and unobtrusively, unlike the old town in Nessebar. Worth a walk along the street. Ropotamo, where you can buy very tasty fish of various types right on the street, my daughter really liked Tsatsa (small fish, rolled in flour and baked, are eaten like seeds, but you don’t need to clean them). There is also a Paradise restaurant - in terms of catering for vacationers with small children, we recommend it, because this is perhaps the only institution in which black pepper is absent by default in almost all dishes (even in barbecue), which is good for small children. In the rest of the cafes, my daughter could only eat a soup soup (chicken soup in our opinion) and perhaps nothing more. In terms of catering for children, Bulgaria disappointed, because. for us it was a real problem - to feed the child normally. It's good that the wife took from the house children's cereals, brewed with boiling water - this was how they escaped until they found Paradise.
Otherwise, I liked everything very much, sandy beaches (clean and cleaned every day, at least Central - for small children it is better), warm sea, even when the air gets cooler, wonderful attitude of local residents, low prices for food and some things.