This full day private Burgas Nessebar tour, led by an English-speaking guide, includes the resort towns of Nessebar and Pomorie. In addition to a walking tour you visit several important sites including Thracian's Tomb. There is some free time in Nessebar where you can have lunch, shop, or explore.
Nessebar (also known as Nessebur) is an ancient town but also one of the most popular seaside resorts on the Bulgarian Black Sea Coast. The old town is located on a peninsula which was once an island but has since become part of the mainland via a man-made isthmus. In the 1950s the town became designated a museum-city because of the rich amount of historical sites located in such a small area. The town was added to the UNESCO list of World Heritage Sites in 1983.
Your Nessebar walking tour starts in the labyrinth of narrow cobbled streets which are home to many beautiful wooden houses from the Bulgarian Revival period. The old town is only about 1 mile long and a quarter mile wide so there are a lot of important sites located in a small area.
Around almost every corner you will find one of the more than 40 churches built in Old Nessebar, 12 of which survive today. During your walk you will see Christ Pantokrator, St. Stefan, St. John Aliturgetos, St. John the Baptist, St. Archangels Gavrail and Michael, St. Paraskeva and St. Sofia. You will visit the interior of the small St. Spas church which dates back to 1609 and is well known for its 17th century wall paintings.
You also see several cultural monuments on the island including the Byzantine fortified walls, the ruins of Rome baths and the Turkish bath and fountain. These sites combined help to illustrate the varied history that this small island has endured. Your tour also includes a visit to the Archaeological Museum of Nessebar, where you see anchors, coins, ceramics, and sculpture recovered from the site.
At the end of your walking tour you have a couple hours of free time for lunch (meal not included) and time to explore or visit one of the local shops.
This afternoon you drive to Pomorie, another important resort town, along the way you pass the Lake of Pomorie and its still functional salt works. In Pomorie you stop at the orthodox male monastery of St. George which dates back to the 16th century AD. It is at this spot where an ill man found a marble bas-relief of St. George. At the same spot a spring was found and the man was cured from the spring waters. That original bas-relief can still be seen today. The town of Pomorie is also well known as a mud-curing spa town.
Next you visit the famous Thracian tomb which dates back to the 2nd century AD. It is the only similar tomb found on the Balkan peninsula and the largest in Bulgaria. Because of its semi-cylindrical vault, it is considered a great monument of antiquity. The entry corridor is about 65 feet long and the interior circular chamber is about 35 feet wide and 16 feet high.
At the end of this Nessebar excursion you are brought back to the port in Burgas.