Avren municipality: what to see between Varna and Kamchia

Avren (Аврен) is the rural municipality just south-west of Varna: 17 villages on a high limestone plateau, a medieval fortress on a cliff, an astronomical observatory and, on its eastern edge, the seaside resort of Kamchia. If you searched for “Avren Bulgaria”, this is the place most people mean: the village of Avren, about 30 km from central Varna by road, is the centre of a municipality of 353.78 km² and roughly 8,300 people (Wikipedia (BG)). It is not a resort destination, but it rewards a half-day drive with history, wide views and quiet villages, and it pairs easily with a beach afternoon at Kamchia.

Where is Avren?

The municipality fills the eastern part of Varna Province. It borders Varna and Beloslav to the north, Devnya and Provadia to the west, Dolni Chiflik to the south and the Black Sea to the east. About two thirds of it is the Avren plateau, also called the Momino plateau after Momino, the name Avren village bore from 1935 to 1964; its highest point, Peykovi Nivi (329 m), rises 1.5 km north of the village. The flat western part, the Sindel lowland, lies where the Provadiyska and Kamchia rivers come within about 3 km of each other (Wikipedia (BG)).

The municipality lists its 17 villages as Avren, Benkovski, Bliznatsi, Bolyartsi, Dobri Dol, Dabravino, Zdravets, Kazashka Reka, Kitka, Krusha, Priseltsi, Ravna Gora, Sadovo, Sindel, Trastikovo, Tsarevtsi and Yunak, plus the resort of Kamchia (Avren Municipality). Bulgaria has a second, smaller village called Avren near Krumovgrad in the Rhodopes (Wikipedia (BG)), so double-check the province on your map.

Petrich Kale: the fortress on the cliff

The best reason to come is Petrich Kale, on a high rock terrace at the north-west edge of the plateau. Its land belongs to Avren municipality, but you reach it from the village of Razdelna below. The fortress was built in the 5th–6th century as part of the early Byzantine defences, revived under Byzantine rule and flourished in the Second Bulgarian Empire. The Arab geographer al-Idrisi described it in 1154 as “a large, fine and rich town”; the Ottomans took it in 1388, and on 7 November 1444 the army of the Varna crusade reached its walls, breaking the gates with cannon (Wikipedia (BG)). The story of that campaign is told in our page on the Battle of Varna 1444.

What you see today: sheer cliffs up to 35 m on the west and north, remains of two rectangular towers about 11 by 9 m still standing up to 7 m, wall sections 5–6 m high, a small single-nave church and a stairway cut into the rock, about 20 m long, leading to two huge cisterns that held over 700 m³ of water. A metal cross was raised on the cliff edge in 2015 in memory of the Razdelna flood of that year. Access is by an unpaved road from the end of Razdelna and then a poorly marked path (Wikipedia (BG)). We found no official opening hours or tickets: it is an open ruin, so go in daylight and stay back from the edge.

Around the fortress lies the Petricha protected site, 126.9 ha declared in 1986 to protect a cliff habitat of rare birds of prey listed in Bulgaria’s Red Book, including the Egyptian vulture, long-legged buzzard, golden eagle, short-toed eagle and eagle owl. There is a mountain hut at the foot of the fortress (Wikipedia (BG)).

Avren village: observatory, church and a second fortress

Avren itself lies in the western part of the plateau, which is named after the village (Wikipedia (BG)). It was renamed Momino in 1935 and got its old name back in 1964 (Wikipedia (BG)). The municipality lists Petrich Kale, an ethnographic complex, the astronomical observatory and the Orthodox church among its attractions, and the village feast is Petkovden, 14 October (Avren Municipality).

• Avren observatory is the base observatory of the Nikolay Kopernik public observatory in Varna, and the Varna astronomy club Kanopus holds regular observations there (Wikipedia (BG)). Contact the Varna observatory about public evenings rather than turning up.
• St Paraskeva (Petka) church was built in 1868.
• About 1.95 km south of the village, at the Kishishlika locality, are the remains of a second late antique and medieval fortress, Akveran, on a rocky spur cut off by a ditch and a wall about 270 m long; coins of Tsar Ivan Alexander (1331–1371) have been found there (Wikipedia (BG)). The municipality’s own two-day route also includes a medieval rock monastery, Blagoveshtenie (Annunciation), at Kishishlika and a walk to the small Panichkata reservoir (Avren Municipality). We found no visitor information or waymarking details for these sites, so ask in the village for the way.

Tsarevtsi: church, school and carpets

In the west of the municipality, near the bend of the Provadiyska river, Tsarevtsi keeps a 19th-century ensemble of church and old school. Its church of Sts Constantine and Helena is a listed monument that, according to the municipality, was visited by Vasil Levski and Hristo Botev, and together with the old school it forms a museum complex with an ethnographic collection where visitors can watch traditional carpet weaving (Avren Municipality). The writer Stilyan Chilingirov taught in the village school around 1899–1900, and many characters in his novel Children of Hell are based on locals (Wikipedia (BG)). The village fair is held on the first Sunday of June.

More villages worth a stop

• Sindel: the municipality mentions the caves around the village and the hill Ilan Bair; Wikipedia places Sindel cave by the road and railway, with the Sindel marsh south of the village (Wikipedia (BG)). Sindel also has the area’s railway station.
• Zdravets: a small dam 2 km from the village with the Zdravets hut, used for rest and fishing, an ethnographic collection in the community centre and a church of 1926 (Avren Municipality).
• Ravna Gora: houses from the late 19th century declared cultural monuments (Avren Municipality).
• Krusha: a remote hill village with an ethnographic collection in its community centre (Avren Municipality).
• Priseltsi: the municipality lists the inn of Hadzhi Kolyo and the Ribarnika pond, and the village re-enacts the old custom Pali kosh, which it calls unique in the province (Avren Municipality).

Kamchia: the coastal side

Avren reaches the Black Sea at Kamchia, a resort about 25 km south of Varna beside the village of Bliznatsi, where the Kamchia river meets the sea among longoz (floodplain) forests and long beaches (Wikipedia (BG)). Bliznatsi lies 3 km from the resort (Avren Municipality). The municipality’s tourist route ends here with a boat trip on the river towards the Kamchia reserve. The reserve, the boat rules and the beaches have their own page: Kamchia river, reserve and beach.

How do you get there from Varna?

• Car: the easiest option. By road (OSRM), Avren village is about 30 km from central Varna, roughly 35 minutes; Kamchia about 28 km; Tsarevtsi about 41 km. Road I-9 towards Burgas crosses the east of the municipality (Wikipedia (BG)).
• Train: the Sofia–Varna line runs through the west, with a station at Sindel and a stop at Trastikovo (Wikipedia (BG)).
• Bus: we could not confirm a current timetable from Varna to Avren village, so ask at Varna bus station.

A good loop is Varna – Razdelna (Petrich Kale) – Avren – Tsarevtsi and back, or Avren – Kamchia for an afternoon at the sea. For other places in the region, see what to see in Varna Province; if you would rather stay on the coast north of Varna, start with Golden Sands and St Constantine.