Some golf in Bulgaria by the Black Sea

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Ready for some golf in the middle of nowhere? Well, here is a great example of it.

Just over 10 years ago, some guy had the idea to build a new "golf destination" on the Black Sea in Bulgaria. They brought in Gary Player and Ian Woosnam to design 3 courses, the classics Lighthouse as well as Black Sea Rama golf courses...and the way more spectacular, Gary Player designed, Thracian Cliffs.

So a little more about this little side trip of 3 nights, 4 days...I must admit, slightly in the middle of nowhere.

It's mainly direct low cost/charter planes that are coming to Varna, on the Black Sea. Austrian is flying once a day, not very convenient schedule for me, arriving from London and leaving to Brussels. So I went for the other option, the once a day flight to Istanbul. Bear in mind, Istanbul is a short 30 to 40 minutes flight South of Varna.

Once in Varna, I rented a car with Avis. Well...not sure how many cars they have in stock, but I must have received one of the last one. Drove through Varna...yes, it does remind me of so many of those old communist places that haven't changed much over the years. Bear in mind, this is the great all-inclusive place welcoming mainly Romanians and Germans on a budget. But we are already end of the season, the flights in had dried...and the crowds too. They dried so much that the new Ibis Styles that I booked decided to close 2 weeks ahead of schedule. They first wanted to simply reimburse me my stay...but with some little help from me, they ended up relocating me. The process was done super nicely by management...and they ended up putting me right at one of the golf resorts.

The process was actually pretty fortunate for me as I hadn't realize that those golf courses are 50-60kms North of Varna....yes, there is even a village there named Balchik...with one or two restaurants and 2 little supermarkets! Not really your idea of a high-end area. But they succeeded in making some glorious golf courses!

So I ended up staying at the Lighthouse Golf and Resort. Fun, this year, 70% of the staff is from Bali. You'll read soon more about Bali! The Indonesian staff is pretty exceptional...and this makes a solid contrast to the few local managers. Welcome to Bulgaria!

I ended playing twice the Lighthouse course, once Black Sea Rama and once the famous Thracian Cliffs.

Thracian Cliffs is a little of a show piece course. Not the place done for intermediate players. I did manage to play my handicap, which is pretty cool...and I didn't actually lose that many balls.



Next interesting point, it may have been middle September...it was sunny...but freezing too. Imagine, the temperature had tough time to reach 22 degrees at lunch time. My winter home in South Africa is warmer than this! Some golfers were more equipped than other...and most better than me in my golf shorts!



So was it worth the trip...how yes, and it's one more country I can claim I have play golf in. Will I come back, maybe not any time soon, as there is so much to still discover all around the world.



Enjoy the few pics...next entry will include some diving and even maybe some paddy fields...

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