Burgas

You do not need to be particularly interested in old aircraft to enjoy the Burgas Aviation Museum, but visiting it could lead to a new interest in your life. Established in 1998 as a part of Burgas Airport, in 2017 the exhibition was revamped to appeal to the modern visitor.

The collection is a good introduction to the nuts-and-bolts of aviation, and features nine aircraft that were in service during the time of Communism, when the country relied heavily on Soviet planes.

Sometimes it pays not to have a very long history. Despite some claims that Bulgaria's largest city on the southern Black Sea coast is ancient (related in some way to Troy, I was told recently), most would agree that Burgas is quite new.

A few years ago, the citizens of Burgas voted for the symbol of their city. Unsurprisingly, they chose the pier. Jutting out from the beach, the pier is the 280-metre long 1980s reincarnation of an 1936 original.

Bulgaria's Black Sea can be calm or full of tourists, pristine or packed with ugly hotels, but one thing it is not: a sea where numerous islands, large and small, are available for exploration.

Only seven islands dot the 354 km of Bulgaria coastline and some of them are so small that they are little more than rocks in the sea. In the summer of 2014, however, one of the islands in the Bulgarian Black Sea became a genuine tourist attraction.

Even by Bulgarian standards Burgas is a strange city. It is one of those few Bulgarian towns that do not claim "ancient" history – it was founded in the late 19th Century by immigrants from various locations throughout Bulgaria and the Balkans who had arrived here owing to various reasons, mainly to escape wars and destitution. Burgas soon emerged as the country's perhaps most cosmopolitan town. Thracian and Macedonian rubbed shoulders with Greek, Turk, Armenian, Russian, Czech, Albanian and the odd Italian or two.