Indiscriminately dumped waste and unregulated landfills, as well as a lack of a well-organized transport and tourist environment, came across the tourists who decided to visit the Natural Park “Golden Sands” during the autumn vacation of the students. One of them – Dr. Gavrail Gavrailov, a lecturer at “Jean Monet Center” at “Paisiy Hilendarski” University of Plovdiv, shared with EcoVarna his impressions of the tourist tour in the park.
The first thing that makes a bad impression on him is
the inconvenient transport to Aladzha Monastery
Number 29 leaves the train station at 8 in the morning, is at the last stop by 8.40, and returns in the late afternoon, already dark.
“Arriving at Aladzha Monastery on Waker’s Day, what unpleasantly surprised me was that the site had changed opening hours and tourists could enter there at 10 a.m., although the bus arrived at 8.40 a.m. as scheduled,” the story begins you are Gabriel To compress the time, he changes his previous plan for the day and walks, together with his son, in Golden Sands Park. “It struck me that there is an awful lot of garbage at the approaches to the park. Inside, along the main paths, there are who knows how many, but aside from them in several places we saw unregulated dumps. “Someone purposefully got there by car or on foot and threw out a lot of uniform waste,” the man is disappointed. This makes a big impression on his 11-year-old son Hristo, who, despite his age, already participates in organized clean-ups as a volunteer. “He has the senses of a person who, if he sees garbage in nature, bends down and picks it up. But
so much rubbish we saw
in Golden Sands Park, that there was no way we could take them with us,” says Gavrailov.
The culmination of the walk is still positive and it is the new museum collection in Aladzha Monastery. It also includes a multimedia performance that is very impactful for children. In the complex itself, the paths are in excellent condition. “It struck my son that there were many thrown coins, mostly Romanian lei, in a chapel on the second floor of the rock niche complex. Apparently, people also accept it as a sacred place, and not just as a museum object. There is also a box, but there are not donations, but notes with wishes from tourists,” says Gavrail.
After visiting the museum, he and his son take the main trail into the nature park to walk down to the beach at the resort. “The route is very comfortable even for small children, there are great views of the entire bay and Cape Kaliakra, but the rest areas are not in good condition. The taps have run dry. In many places
we saw traces of fire
although it is forbidden in a nature park,” says the guest. There are many signposts in the park area. However, at one point Gabriel and his son are misled by the markings (displaced directions on the signs) and go on another path. “From the last 7-8 years, I don’t see any change in terms of the places provided, they inform the tourists. The tourist information center at the entrance to the park has apparently been out of business for a long time. Inside there were brochures that I have seen at tourist exchanges before 2010. Dusty windows, broken air conditioners, missing lighting fixtures, lack of management…” concludes the professor from Plovdiv University. He notes with irony that the park directorate is clearly not interested in too many tourists, because it is better to stay on “all inclusive” in the hotels and go down only to the beach, and not go up to the forest.
“Golden Sands Nature Park is an exceptional resource not only for Varna and Bulgaria’s tourism, but also for us as citizens. This is the second natural park chronologically. It is in an extremely important and convenient place. It can be reached by public transport. Nature is exceptional and offers
a place for tourism in all seasons
The place has a lot of potential,” Gavrailov is convinced. However, on the day off for the students, during his walk, he did not meet any other tourists in the park. According to him, the Bulgarian Tourist Union is a big debtor to the society, not only because of the desertion from such type of objects, but also because of the maintenance of the marking of places where there is an opportunity for mountain tourism. “The proximity to Varna, to the resorts, the possibility to visit this place all year round, the combination of sea and mountain, which exists in very few places in the world… In addition to all this, there are also mineral waters, a sacred place for pilgrimage, wonderful opportunities for culinary tourism. But all this remains fragmented,” concludes Gavrail Gavrailov.
IF OUR WORK IS IMPORTANT TO YOU, SUPPORT US!
This article is created with the support of the “Pro Veritas” organization and the site zaistinata.com as part of the “Development of independent regional journalism” project.
