Bradt Publishes Bulgaria Guide
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www.bradtguides.com For many years alarming folk music, austere bargain-basement package holidays and an elderly kleptomaniac womble have summed up the quintessential Bulgarian experience for the majority. However, though associations endure, reality moves on. In 2006 Bulgaria joined NATO and last year it joined the EU. As author of Bradt’s first edition of Bulgaria, Annie Kay writes: ‘The Bulgaria of the 21st century is very different from the rather old-fashioned country I fell in love with as a student in the 1970s. Sofia is now vibrant and exciting, buildings are being restored, and new bars and restaurants are opening all the time… It’s a perfect destination for a city break.’
Bradt’s guide explores in-depth the Austro-Hungarian ambience of Sofia then looks beyond Europe’s highest capital to the Bulgarian countryside. Here, as well as mention of the Black Sea and familiar ski resorts, Bulgaria describes hiking the wild uplands of the Rhodope, Rila and Vitosha mountains, providing detailed maps and walking trails. Elsewhere, natural-history sections emphasise how low-intensity farming practices maintained during the communist era may have made a poor man of Bulgarian agriculture but have provided a legacy of enduring richness in rural wildlife. Bulgaria’s birds, butterflies and wild flowers are striking enough in their own right but are made doubly so by their absence in the agribusiness hinterland of Western Europe. If this all sounds too good to be true, it may be time to go and see for yourself. In fact why not escape to the country and buy a pied-à-terre in the Bulgarian Balkans? Bradt’s guide leads the way in business etiquette and how to buy a property too!
Dr Annie Kay has written award-winning articles on Bulgaria for newspapers and magazines. She has organised the British-Bulgarian Friendship Society’s special-interest programme since 1996.
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