My name is Marion Vermazen. I am a traveler, hiker, reader, Sun alumnus, computer geek, YouTuber, Spanish and French language student, knitter, weaver and genealogist.
To make it easier for you to follow our 2026 Spring European trip from the beginning I’ve linked the blog posts in order.
You can go to the first blog post of our trip by clicking on this link.
At the end of each blog post after that, there is a link to the next day’s blog post.
It rained all day today. Luckily our rooms in both Carpe Diem where we stayed the last two nights and the Bey House Royal Hotel in Veliko Tarnovo where we are tonight are big and very welcoming. So we were happy staying in our room, reading and enjoying the ambiance.
Today we drove just over three hours west towards Sofia. We stayed in Veliko Tarnovo the last time we came to Bulgaria too. Wikipedia describes it as the historical and spiritual capital of Bulgaria. The center of the old town has the castle complex where the Bulgarian Emperors lived. Tomorrow we will explore it rain or shine.
Carpe Diem where we are staying is an absolutely wonderful retreat deep in the Bulgarian countryside. We have had great food and our room is very comfortable.
Today after it stopped raining we went for a walk into the tiny village of Sladka Voda.
Then we used the spa. The hot tub, spa and saunas are all heated by wood stoves.
As I said the food has all been great. Dinner tonight was even better than last night.
If you would like to continue to follow our travels, you can click here to read our next blog post.
We spent 4 nights in Burgas. The Primoretz Grand Hotel and the town of Burgas are really nice. That’s all it takes to enjoy a place. I really liked Burgas. Of course it helped that we had two days of sunshine. Today is grey again but today is a travel day.
Before leaving Burgas this morning we used the spa. It was lovely.
Just before noon we checked out and drove about an hour and a half north and inland to a hotel spa outside of Sladka Voda. Duke booked Carpe Diem because it has excellent reviews. I think it was an excellent choice. It is a wonderful hotel and spa. Even though the weather is back to rainy, cold and grey we had a wonderful relaxing afternoon.
We checked out the spa which we will use tomorrow and relaxed and read this afternoon.
We had an excellent dinner in the hotel restaurant.
To read about our second day at Carpe Diem click here.
Today we went out exploring. We drove 45 minutes up the coast to the old town of Nessebar. The following is taken from the UNESCO World Heritage Site web page.
the more than 3,000-year-old site of Nessebar was originally a Thracian settlement (Menebria). At the beginning of the 6th century BC, the city became a Greek colony.
We walked all around the town, went to the Archaeological Museum, and stopped for coffee.
For dinner we went back to Restaurant Ziatna Ribka. Duke had Rapana and I had mussels. It wasn’t until after we ordered that we figured out that Rapana is a kind of invasive sea snail. It was all very good.
If you would like to read our next blog post when we leave Burgas click here.
Sun! We had a lovely sunny day today. The high temperature was only 56° but the blue skies and sun made it a very pleasant day. This morning we went for a walk along the coast of the Black Sea.
This afternoon we went back and had another pastry at the pastry shop we went to yesterday.
For dinner we went to a nearby restaurant called Tony Gigi Burgas.
To read our next blog post click here.
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