Visit Nessebar

Why visit Nessebar

Nessebar Old Town is barely 850 metres long and sits on a rocky peninsula tied to the mainland by a narrow causeway — a setting that has been continuously inhabited for over 3,200 years. The Greeks called it Mesembria; the Byzantines turned it into one of the most important religious centres on the western Black Sea, leaving a remarkable concentration of churches packed into a small grid. The Church of Christ Pantokrator (13th–14th century), with its bands of red brick, green ceramic discs, and decorative blind arches, is the most iconic, but the half-buried Stara Mitropolia (Old Metropolitan Church) and the 10th-century St Stephen's Church with extensive medieval frescoes are equally worth your time. The lanes between them are lined with the wood-overhanging-stone Black Sea Revival houses of the 1800s, now galleries, tavernas, and small shops. Step off the peninsula and the modern resort strip of Sunny Beach is right next door for sand-and-cocktail days; for something quieter, the fishing village of Sveti Vlas is a few kilometres up the coast.