Travel: Golden Sands, Bulgaria

• Golden Sands, Bulgaria

As you cruise along the road from Varna Airport through the city of that name to the Black Sea resort of Golden Sands, every so often you see a monumental reminder to the decades spent under the jackboot of Stalin and his successors. Giant concrete statues of workers and soldiers, and even worker-soldiers, occur at intervals, but local people are far more proud of the plethora of garish new shopping malls that are springing up around the place.

Another reminder of Communist rule is the resemblance of some Black Sea hotels to a super holiday camp, a kind of Butlins with barbed wire. That's because these hotels were once the holiday homes of the Communist Party's ruling elite. But Bulgaria has moved on swiftly and its membership of the European Union since 2007 makes the country all the more accessible.

Located about 16 miles from Varna Airport, the resort of Golden Sands is well named, as its beaches are long and mostly kept in excellent order. The resort has the usual mix of hotels, restaurants, clubs and souvenir shops as well as a few 'adult' bars.

Golden Sands used to share a reputation with sister resort Sunny Beach as a sort of 'Blackseapool', full of peely-wally package holiday tourists in search of sunshine and cheap booze, which of course can be a socially lethal combination.

Now the resort is trying to place itself a bit more upmarket, and places like the Helios Spa Hotel are upgunning their facilities to genuinely compete with the best resort hotels around the Black Sea and Mediterranean.

It is part of a group of five and four-star establishments on the Black Sea, with more than 400 rooms in an immaculately maintained seven-storey building overlooking the town. And it is less than ten minutes' walk from the beach, though there are also two large outdoor and one indoor pool if you just fancy lazing around the hotel.

A new state-of-the-art wing is under construction, but the clue to its unique selling point is in the name. In the basement of the hotel is a quite stunning spa. From hydrotherapy to mud baths, there is everything a body could want, all overseen by a qualified medical doctor.

Helios Spa really is one of the jewels of this beach resort, while the Bolero and the Riviera can also be safely recommended. For those with deeper pockets, the Oasis must be one of the most luxurious boutique hotels anywhere, with its own private beach and 15 superbly appointed suites.

In Golden Sands, the season runs from late May to early October, when you are guaranteed one thing — plenty of sunshine.According to travel firm Balkan Holidays, we Scots apparently love Bulgaria. Our English host was too polite to suggest this might have something to do with the fact that it is not an expensive country, as shown by the price of alcohol — a very acceptable local lager can cost you as little as 80p per pint.

The local wine is excellent — as long as it comes from a sealed bottle — and cheap, too, and eating out is very inexpensive in comparison to other resorts in the Med. Local specialities include shopska salad, which features a cheese made from goat's milk, delicious with any meal.

Most local people dealing with travellers have at least a smattering of English, which is necessary as Bulgarian is not easy to learn due to the fact that it uses the Cyrillic alphabet.

Just along the coast from Golden Sands are the resorts of St Konstantin and Albena. It is also worth visiting Varna, which is a curious hybrid. Bulgaria's third largest city in terms of population, it is also the country's largest seaport on the Black Sea. It is therefore highly industrialised in the outskirts and port area, but remains charming and olde worlde in the tree-filled city centre.

I found it disappointing that the Bulgarian civic and tourist authorities do not make more of the nation's extraordinary history. Brochures and leaflets tend to mention the Gold of Varna, the world's oldest golden treasure, housed in the impressive archaeological museum and excavated from the Varna Necropolis, which was only discovered in 1972. Yet there is so much more in the region, stretching back to antiquity, which the casual visitor might appreciate seeing but is not directed to.

Within Varna you can find Roman baths dating back to the pre-Christian era and beautiful Orthodox churches, while Golden Sands has its own mediaeval grotto within the town's nature park. It's also worth making the short trip north to Balchik, to visit the splendidly-preserved Summer Palace of Queen Maria of Romania, in the university Botanical Gardens.

Maria was the granddaughter of Queen Victoria, and like so many of her siblings and cousins, was married off to European royalty, in her case Ferdinand of Romania, the country which then occupied this beautiful part of Bulgaria. Judging by the pretty palace she created, she was a woman of some taste.

Just one warning about Golden Sands — on no account get into one of the local taxis without first getting the fare agreed. Better still, call your hotel and have them arrange for a taxi to pick you up, as drivers will not want to risk losing hotel business should a guest be ripped off.

It's a minor point, and one that will help your enjoyment of a resort that is on the up.

• This article was first published in the Scotland on Sunday on 25/07/2010