The oldest town on the Bulgarian Black Sea — a peninsula of wooden houses, ancient Greek temples, and the Apollonia festival where art meets the Aegean soul of Europe
Sozopol is a small Bulgarian Black Sea resort town of 4,500 permanent residents on a rocky peninsula, 35km south of Burgas — one of the oldest continuously inhabited towns in Bulgaria, founded as the Greek colony Apollonia Pontica in the 7th century BCE. Its old town (Stariya Grad) is one of the most charming in Bulgaria: cobblestone streets lined with characteristic 19th-century Bulgarian Revival wooden houses with overhanging balconies, Romanesque churches, and the remains of ancient Greek temple foundations. Each August, Apollonia Arts Festival transforms the ancient walls into performance…
Sozopol was founded as Apollonia Pontica by Greek colonists from Miletus around 610 BCE — one of the earliest Greek colonial settlements on the Black Sea. It grew into a prosperous trading port exporting grain, fish, and amber to the Greek world; its famous bronze statue of Apollo (12 metres high, made partly from laurel wood) was looted by the Romans in 72 BCE and brought to Rome. The town was conquered by the Romans, passed through Byzantine hands, was absorbed into the Bulgarian Kingdom in the 9th century, and acquired its modern name 'Sozopol' (from the Greek 'Sozon Polis', 'City of Salva…