Sea Garden
The Sea Garden runs along the shore right beside the port, a green belt of alleys, flowerbeds, sculptures and shady trees above the city beach. Within it stand the renovated Sea Casino, now used for exhibitions and concerts, the open-air Summer Theatre and the long pier, a favourite evening stroll for locals. Below the park lies the sandy central beach. It is a public park and free to enter.
Archaeological Museum Burgas
Housed in a 19th-century former girls' school on Aleko Bogoridi Boulevard, this branch of the Regional Historical Museum traces the region from prehistory to the Middle Ages. Highlights include stone anchors from a settlement now under the waters of Burgas Bay, Minoan-type bronze ingots, a statue of Apollo from the ancient settlement of Antiya, and the gold earrings of the Thracian priestess Leseskapra. A reconstructed Thracian tomb stands outside. Tickets EUR 3, students and seniors EUR 1.50, children under 7 free.
Old Nessebar
About 36 km north-east of Burgas, the old town of Nessebar fills a rocky peninsula 850 m long, joined to the mainland by a narrow causeway. Founded more than 3,000 years ago by Thracians and later settled by Dorian Greeks, it became a major Byzantine and medieval Bulgarian town and is on the UNESCO World Heritage List. Its stone and timber houses surround fortress walls and medieval churches such as St Stephen, Christ Pantokrator and the ruined basilica of St Sophia. The Archaeological Museum at the entrance charges EUR 4.60; the lanes themselves are free.
Old Sozopol
About 35 km south of Burgas, Sozopol grew from Apollonia, founded by settlers from Miletus in the 7th century BC, whose temple of Apollo once held a 13 m statue of the god later carried off to Rome. Today the old town on its rocky peninsula is a protected reserve of more than 180 timber-clad Revival houses from the 18th and 19th centuries, built on stone bases to resist the salty sea wind. Visitors can walk the restored southern fortress wall and see the relics of St John the Baptist, found on the nearby island of St Ivan, in the church of Sts Cyril and Methodius.