Bulgaria’s tourist industry is huge, but concentrated in a few locations. The national tourism agency has so low a profile as to be undetectable. So finding good information online can be tricky. One helpful resource, useful for those who might like to have an independent holiday but to have all their reservations and plans made in advance from the US, is Zig Zag Holidays, a travel agency based in Sofia that offers interesting package tours and can book rooms throughout Bulgaria (although they only offer a limited selection of the accomodation options available).

Right now I’m planning the rest of my trip, from Sofia (where I am staying at the very pleasant, centrally located and well-equipped Hotel Sveta Sofia–more on that below). Tomorrow I will make a day trip to the Rila Monastery, south of Sofia, in my rental car–exciting! My next stop will be Plovdiv (ancient Philipopolis, founded by Alexander the Great’s father, Philip of Macedon), then I am going on to the Black Sea coast. I’ll visit Sozopol (ancient Greek Apollonia, Byzantine Sozopolis), Nessebar (Nesebur, Nesebar, etc.–ancient Mesembria) and Varna (ancient Odyssos), where I will drop off my rental car and take a bus to Istanbul. My Rough Guide’s description of the southernmost stretch of the coast is tantalizing, but I don’t really have time to explore the area, nor are there really significant ancient sites (I am supposed to be on a research trip, after all).

The websites of the Varna and Bourgas airports on the Black Sea coast both list departures to Istanbul, but I was unable to find any available flights on kayak.com, sidestep.com or any other websites–they must be charter flights. So, bus it is.

Fortunately, I get to take a Turkish bus. Turkish buses are, of course, the world’s best! (I’ll have to write a paean to Turkish buses for the site some time.) On the Turkey Travel Planner website by Tom Brosnahan, author of the Lonely Planet and Frommer’s Turkey guides, there is a very useful list of buses departing from Istanbul’s main bus station (that link leads to Brosnahan’s page on the Main Bus Station; the station also has its own home page, but it’s only in Turkish and gives far less information, even for those comfortable with Turkish websites, than does Brosnahan’s page).The Turkey Travel Planner Istanbul bus pages include links to bus company websites–the biggest Turkish bus companies all have online booking facilities that even include seat selection–and seems pretty up to date.

I found a daily bus from Varna to Istanbul, departing at 10:30 and arriving at 20:30, with Metro Turizm; there are  other Turkish bus companies that serve this route as well, but Metro has a website, which probably means that it is a more upscale and therefore more comfortable bus company anyway. Plus, the schedule is perfect: leave at a reasonable hour, arrive in time for dinner. I was unable to buy a ticket online, but I’ll call them here in Sofia and see what’s up.

The only obstacle to booking Turkish bus tickets and getting information online is that the English versions of the websites are often not fully functional; you can probably get some information but may not actually be able to book a seat. If you experiment and guess, though, or use a Turkish phrasebook, you can get surprisingly far. It is much easier to interact with a website in an unknown language than with a person!

Despite the lack of centralized, official information, many Bulgarian cities are served by local hotel booking websites which provide a considerable amount of up-to-date information (although I would check anything in writing, by e-mail or fax, with the hotel before arriving: for example, the Sveta Sofia website advertises an on-site garage, but there is nothing of the kind; I had to pay 20 leva, about $15, for overnight parking at a nearby underground garage).

For Sofia, there is hotelsinsofia.com, which lists discounted rates for the Sveta Sofia–I wish I had found this before I booked my room, but I went directly through the hotel’s website instead. The Sveta Sofia in general seems like an excellent mid-price choice for Sofia. The location could not be better, and my room is very comfortable and quiet. My only complaints are that they nickle and dime you for all kinds of things (5 euros per day for internet; 5% extra for credit cards, etc.) and the reception is not very professional–only one receptionist today spoke decent English, and she was often away from the desk, leaving me to contend with the almost-monoglot, and not very helpful (though fetching) Mirena, who had a very hard time helping me get started on the hotel’s internet service. In the end the computer in the basement conference room that they make available to guests was not connecting to the internet, so the hotel staff gave me a key to the office and let me make myself free of it–a great solution to the problem. I am overall favorably impressed with the place.

For Plovdiv, I am trying plovdivhotels.com, which could conceivably be a related website, given some verbatim identical text. Either that or these people are copying each other like bandits! I’ve e-mailed them with requests for information on three hotels in Plovdiv: the somewhat pricey but luxe and atmospheric-looking Hebros (warning: their website has some bad Java script on it, it crashed Explorer on my computer 4 times), the brand new Odeon, and the blander Hotel Bulgaria (I also e-mailed them directly; they have a decent if rather basic website, in English and Bulgarian).

For the Black Sea Coast there’s a surfeit of “information” online, much of it more or less spurious, or at least repetitious. The sleek sozopol.com website is more substantive: it doesn’t book rooms, but has a search service for both private accomodations and hotels, with links to websites for many of the listings. The Hotel Diamanti looks gorgeous, but they don’t have any availability–it’s the first weekend of the high season, so I may have some trouble finding a place (luckily, I will be driving!). The Lola Hotel comes recommended by the Rough Guide, and looks decent too. There are lots of rooms in the new part of Sozopol, so I’m sure I’ll find something.

Nesebar is famous for its picturesque architecture, but the Rough Guide makes it sound miserably crowded. So I’m thinking I’ll just make it a day trip on the way to Varna–the distances are not terribly long on this stretch of the Black Sea coast. There is a varnahotels.com site, clearly a relative of plovdivhotels.com–it’s the same travel agency. 

That’s it for now; I’ll revise this post with the results of my e-mail inquiries.