Sozopol is the most charming town on Bulgaria's Black Sea coast. It's an old fishing port on a rocky peninsula, with cobbled streets, wooden Bulgarian Revival houses looking out over the sea, old churches and quiet beaches. Its relaxed, bohemian feel has made it a haven for artists and a calm alternative to the big resorts. With more than 2,600 years of history, it is one of the oldest towns on the coast: the Greek Apollonia Pontica.
Its old town, declared an architectural reserve, is a pleasure to wander. More than 180 houses from the 18th and 19th centuries, with stone ground floors and overhanging wooden upper floors, crowd along narrow lanes that run down to the sea among fig trees and flower-filled courtyards. The town also has a remarkable archaeological museum with Greek pottery. Since 2010 it has kept the relics of St. John the Baptist found on nearby St. Ivan Island, which draw pilgrims from all over the world.
This guide takes a practical look at Sozopol. It covers what to see in the old town and what its museums cost, where the beaches are, how to get there from Burgas and its airport, and when to go for the Apollonia festival in early September. It also explains how to add trips to St. Ivan Island or the wild southern coast. Sozopol is a town with soul, where Greek antiquity and Bulgarian seafaring tradition meet by the Black Sea.
Sozopol is the ancient Apollonia Pontica, founded around 610 BC by Greek settlers from Miletus in honour of the god Apollo. It was one of the richest and most cultured colonies on the Black Sea. It was famous for a colossal bronze Apollo about 13 metres tall, made by the sculptor Calamis, which the Romans carried off to Rome in 72 BC after conquering the city. With Christianity it changed its name to Sozopolis ('city of salvation'), and it became a Byzantine and then a Bulgarian stronghold. Its wooden houses were built during the Bulgarian Revival. In 2010, relics attributed to St. John the Baptist were found on nearby St. Ivan Island, and today they are venerated in the town. We tell the whole story on our history page.
Read the full history ↓The Black Sea shore was colonised by the Greeks 2,600 years ago and holds everything from the Thracian gold of Varna to the Byzantine churches of Nesebar, among old fishing towns and modern resorts.
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Origins, formation and what the sources say.
Sozopol is one of the oldest towns on Bulgaria's Black Sea coast, and its story begins with the Greeks. Around 610 BC, settlers from Miletus founded a colony on this peninsula. Miletus was the great Ionian city of Asia Minor, home to philosophers and seafarers. The settlers named the colony Apollonia in honour of Apollo, god of light, the arts and prophecy, who became the city's patron. There were other cities called Apollonia in the Greek world, so this one became known as Apollonia Pontica, the 'Apollonia of the Pontus' (the Black Sea).
The city grew rich quickly thanks to its harbour and its trade with the Thracians inland and with the wider Mediterranean. It exported grain, wine, salt and other goods. It minted its own coins, showing Apollo and the city's symbol, the anchor, and it had a lively cultural life. Apollonia was proud of its temple to Apollo and, above all, of one monumental work: a colossal bronze statue of the god, about 13 metres tall, made by the famous Athenian sculptor Calamis in the 5th century BC. The colossus could be seen from the sea and was the city's emblem and pride.
Apollonia competed with the other Greek colonies on the coast, such as neighbouring Mesembria (today's Nesebar). It became one of the richest and most refined cities on the western Black Sea. Its necropolis and workshops have given archaeologists one of the finest collections of Greek pottery in Bulgaria.
Rome brought Apollonia's prosperity to an end. In 72 BC, during Rome's wars of expansion in the Balkans, the general Marcus Lucullus captured the city. The Romans took the great bronze Apollo by Calamis back to Rome, either as punishment or as loot, and set it up on the Capitol. Over time the city's great symbol was lost for good. The Roman conquest ended the independent, prosperous Apollonia of the classical age.
The city survived, though. It became part of the Roman world and later the Byzantine one, and its harbour stayed busy. As Christianity spread, Apollonia, whose name recalled a pagan god, changed its name to Sozopolis, Greek for 'city of salvation'. Under this Christian name it became the seat of a bishop and an important Byzantine stronghold on the Black Sea.
Traces of this shift from the pagan to the Christian world can be found all over the peninsula. St Ivan Island (Sveti Ivan), just off the town, became home to a monastery dedicated to St John the Baptist, which would play a surprising role many centuries later. Byzantine Sozopolis, walled and Christian, is the link between the Greek colony and the Bulgarian town.
Like the rest of the western Black Sea coast, Sozopolis was fought over in the Middle Ages by the Byzantine Empire and a series of Bulgarian states. The town changed hands several times as the wars went back and forth. Sometimes it belonged to Byzantium and sometimes to Bulgaria, but it always lived from its harbour and from fishing. Its position on the peninsula made it fairly easy to defend, but it was also open to attack from the sea.
In the late 14th century the Ottoman Turks advanced through the Balkans and reached the coast. Sozopol, by now known by a more Slavic form of its name, fell to the Ottoman Empire. Like the rest of Bulgaria, it stayed under Ottoman rule for almost five centuries. Under the Ottomans the town lost its political importance and became a quiet fishing port. Most of its people were Greek and Bulgarian Christians, who kept their churches and their seafaring traditions.
Fishing, coastal trade and a simple life by the sea shaped the Ottoman centuries. Sozopol kept a strong Greek character well into the 20th century, and many of its families spoke Greek. That heritage can still be felt in the layout and spirit of the Old Town.
In the 18th and 19th centuries, during the Bulgarian National Revival (Vazrazhdane), the Christian communities of the Black Sea prospered through trade. This is when Sozopol built the houses that make it so picturesque today. They follow the 'Black Sea architectural school'. The ground floor is solid stone and served as a storeroom, wine cellar or fishermen's workshop. The upper floor is made of wood, lighter and brighter, with bay windows (erker) that jut out over the street to catch the light and the sea views. Between the houses are courtyards with vines and fig trees, and cobbled lanes that lead down to the water.
More than 180 of these 18th- and 19th-century houses survive in the Old Town, which is why it was declared an architectural and archaeological reserve. It is one of the best-preserved historic quarters on the coast. Churches were also built or renovated in this period, such as the Church of Saints Cyril and Methodius and the Church of the Holy Virgin, with their carved wooden iconostases.
Bulgaria was liberated in 1878, and the population exchanges of the early 20th century followed. Much of Sozopol's old Greek community emigrated, and the town's population became mostly Bulgarian. But its look, a maze of wooden houses perched on the rocks, stayed almost untouched. So did the charm that would later draw artists and travellers.
In 20th-century Bulgaria, Sozopol became known as a retreat for artists, writers and bohemians. The quiet Old Town, the wooden houses and the sunsets over the sea inspired them in a way the busy mass tourism growing further north did not. That cultural spirit led to the Apollonia Festival of Arts. It was founded in the 1980s and named after the town's ancient Greek name. Every early September it fills Sozopol with music, theatre, film and exhibitions, and it has become one of Bulgaria's major cultural events.
The biggest news of recent decades came in 2010. Archaeologists were excavating the old monastery on St Ivan Island, just off the town, when they found a small reliquary holding bone fragments attributed to St John the Baptist. The discovery made headlines around the world. The relics were placed in the Church of Saints Cyril and Methodius in the Old Town, and Sozopol became a place of pilgrimage. In 2011, 'Old Sozopol and the relics of St John the Baptist' were voted the top 'Wonder of Bulgaria'.
Today Sozopol brings all its past lives together. There is Greek Apollonia in the archaeological museum, Christian Sozopolis in the churches, the fishing village of wooden houses, the artists' retreat and the beach resort. It is more relaxed than the big resorts. Cobbled lanes, fish restaurants with terraces over the rocks and sandy beaches make it one of the most soulful places on the Bulgarian coast. It is a 2,600-year-old town that still looks out over the Black Sea, just as it did on the day it was founded.
