My wife is Bulgarian, and she decided that this year we should go to her home country.  Bulgaria.

Beware of taxi drivers though.  As well as trying to rip us off – the details of which I’lll not bore you with.  Our taxi driver decided to play Bulgarian Roulette with our lives.

As Obzor, a favourite costal resort of Bulgarians, is out of the way and it was night time we had to get a taxi there. many Bulgarian roads aren’t lit like in the UK, and are only lit up by car headlights.  Like so many Bulgarian drivers, our driver didn’t see the need for a seat-belt, or to abide, even closely, by speed limits.  The journey took us up (and down) a mountain, along a sickeningly windy route, with hairpin bends every five metres or so.  My wife, my son and I were all queasy.  The driver also didn’t seem to realise that he wasn’t playing a computer game, and overtook on pitch-black bends – on bends for goodness sake – swerving between lanes as he zipped up to, and swerved round every car in sight.

Somehow we made it alive to Obzor, and staggered out of the taxi.  While my wife went to enquire where our apartment was located, my son and I stood, pale as vampires, retching into a shared plastic bag.

It was quite a nice holiday, in Bulgaria’s answer to Rhyl.  The waves were so big that I was rarely able to take my five year old son into the sea to swim.  And this wasn’t a one off, it’s just how the sea is there.  The weather was good, and Obzor is built round the tourist industry.  Other than Bulgarians, you do get a lot of Ukranians there too.

Would I recommend Obzor?  If you’re an impoverished Bulgarian, living in Bulgaria, it’s definitely worth a visit.  But from the UK it’s a bit out the way, not quite like Easter Island, or the Moon, but it’s a trek.  And you’ll probably need a taxi.