Sunny Beach, Bulgaria
Friday, 29th May 2009 by Alex Steinberger
Sunny Beach (Bulgarian: Slanchev bryag) is a Bulgarian resort community located in the southern end of the Bulgarian Black Sea Coast along a semi-circular bay. Known locally as Bulgaria's Beverly Hills, it is the country's largest resort boasting 800 luxury hotels with 300,000 beds. Incidentally, it is also the funny-shaped pool capital of the world.1
Construction on the town began in 1958 during the Soviet occupation. It has a very small permanent group of inhabitants and stays almost completely empty for most of the year. However, during the summer months the resort's population can swell with many thousands of tourists from Germany, Sweden, and the United Kingdom.
Aerial views of Sunny Beach reveal the sheer number of unique pools that dot town. Actually, it seems a distinct possibility that rectangular-shaped pools might have been made illegal at some point.
Exploring Sunny Beach's many pools is rather like picking shapes out of passing clouds. Each one seems to be unique with some having some interesting resemblances to other objects. Here's one that looks like Mickey Mouse's head:
And here's another that looks like...well...you get the idea:
You can learn more about Sunny Beach at the official website and on Wikipedia.
Thanks to Capital C.
-
Opinion of the author, not even remotely based in actual fact. ↩︎
About the author
Alex Steinberger is a starving graduate student studying urban planning in Portland, Oregon. He will work for food.
Here is a rectangular pool but its gone a bit green suggesting it hasnt been used since the outlawing of such things.
https://www.googlesightseeing.com/maps?p=&c=&t=k&hl=en&ll=42.68406,27.711065&z=18
Perhaps it has been left as a monument to remind Bulgarians of the awful times they had to endure. A time before the ending of the Cold War and the unstoppable force of free market capitalism and funny shaped swimming pools swept in. I wonder if there is a section of Bulgarian society who are nostalgic for Communism and rectangular pools?
Revolt! Revolt against the communist rectangular pools! Down with the oppressors!
We want teardrop shaped pools and various other shapes too!
Vive la Révolution!
(You know, or whatever the Bulgarian equivalent is.)
Like…. the Eiffel Tower !
That water park was really good fun when I visited in 2004, but the yellow slide caused some major bruising to my bum as I hit the pool at the bottom at what felt like 100 mph!