A must for those who have interest in the city, its history, architecture, demographic changes... read more
A must for those who have interest in the city, its history, architecture, demographic changes... read more
Again out of a group of about 15 people we were the only ones to give the very good guide a tip. It... read more
I would like to recommend this tour for anyone who might be arriving at Varna; meeting every day at 6pm in front of the cathedral, the tour goes over all the important places in Varna in an informal way (and lasts about two hours) - you will definitely see more of Varna with this tour than you would on your own, and hear lots of stories, urban legends and so on. It's a great example for a successful initiative, and I wish more cities would have such things.
It was very nice tour, to see all interesting things in Varna! Our tour guid was perfectyl informed, spoke a very englisch and was so smart! So, to see Varna in whole: We can recommand that tour!
This is a must for anyone visiting Varna for first time
Our guide spoke good English, was knowledgeable and had a sense of humour. The tour lasted just about the right time.
We done the Free Tour with Monika during our week long stay in Varna towards the end of August 2013 and thoroughly the enjoyed the two hour tour of the city.
I'll be honest, on the day of the tour my feet were hurting and I was tired from the night before, I began slowly dragging my feet and feeling a little sorry for myself. However as the tour went on I found myself intrigued by history of Varna and my sorrows were soon forgotten, so much so towards the end I couldn't help but ask question after question about the City as I wanted to hear more!
I would definitely look up any free tours in future based on this experience, the only feedback I could give to improve the experience would be to either make it a little longer, or perhaps split into different 'types' of tours to see different aspects of the City.
Our tour guide, Alex, was a great tour guide and told as many nteresting facts and was extremely funny and cute. He told us about history of Varna and Bulgaria and showed us the main points of interest.. After the tour he recommended us a restaurant which was very good.. :) One of the best :)
I'm sorry to have to report that the Free Varna Tour turned out to be a far inferior version, for us, of the Free Sofia Tour that we had taken a few days earlier (part of the same organization). Although this tour does hit a number of the most popular attractions in Varna (thereby making it a convenient way to see A LOT in a short time), there were a number of problems with it:
1. Our tour guide was very poorly informed about Varna and Bulgarian history. Although she was a very nice person, she made factual errors when explaining crucial parts of Bulgarian history. My girlfriend who was on the tour is a native of Varna, Bulgaria, and after many stops on the tour, she would tell me the corrected version of what our guide had told us. Our guide was also unable to answer some questions others asked and would actually defer to my girlfriend to see if she knew.
2. Our tour guide was not good at keeping the group together. We had a few "problem people" in our group who would break off to buy things in shops or pet stray dogs or take random pictures, and (unlike on the Sofia free tour), our tour guide did nothing to try to keep them together and keep the tour progressing. When a beggar came to our English tour, our tour guide did not go up to speak to the person and ask him to kindly leave. (This is also in contrast to our Sofia tour guide who DID do this.) When you don't speak the language, there is no way to communicate with somebody like this, and it was nearly impossible to follow what our guide was saying with this distraction.
3. The tour covers a LOT of attractions but does not cover nearly ANY of them sufficiently. There is a feeling of being rushed from one place to the next to cover as much ground as possible. Yet when we came to a simple "wishing bridge," we spent about 20 minutes there, allowing each person on the tour to walk across it backwards, one-at-a-time, so that there wishes might come true. This does not make much sense to me.
4. Tour guide was not loud enough to communicate to the whole group over the street noise.
Maybe it was just because our tour guide was new (she said she had started within the last month), but I must say that we were not very pleased with our experience. On the other hand, it is free, and it does show you a lot of what the beautiful city of Varna has to offer, so it maybe worth it as long as you're not expecting it to be as great an experience as the Sofia tour...