Things to do in Kavarna: Chirakman, museums, the harbour and Yailata

Most things to do in Kavarna (Каварна) are within a short walk of each other: the history museum on the main square, a 15th-century hamam with a small maritime exhibition, two 19th-century churches, and a green valley of old fountains running down to the harbour below Chirakman, the cape where the ancient city of Byzone stood. The town of about 9,800 people is also the nearest base for Cape Kaliakra, Bolata cove and the cave settlement of Yailata. From Varna it takes about an hour by car or 1 h 20 – 1 h 30 by bus.

What is there to see in Kavarna?

Kavarna sits on the flat Dobrudzha plateau, which breaks off in steep cliffs towards the sea. The old centre is on top; the harbour, beach and Chirakman are at the bottom of a valley about 3 km long. Plan half a day for the town and the cape, and another half day for Kaliakra and Yailata. For the whole coast north to the Romanian border, see our Cape Kaliakra and north coast guide.

Chirakman: the cape where Kavarna began

Chirakman (нос Чиракман) is the town’s symbol, a flat, almost inaccessible plateau at the end of the valley, about 3 km south of the centre (Kavarna Municipality). In the Hellenistic period it carried the Thracian-Greek colony of Byzone. In the 1st century BC an earthquake split the cape and much of it slid into the sea. A 4th-century fortress wall has been restored, and an early Christian basilica of the same period has been excavated. After the Asen uprising a medieval craft town grew on the ruins; when the Ottomans took Dobrudzha at the end of the 14th century it was destroyed and its people were moved to the site of today’s town. Divers have since traced a sunken district of Roman Byzone in Kavarna Bay (Wikipedia). The cape is 4.5 km by road from the centre (OSRM), down the harbour road, by car or on foot.

Museums and churches in the old town

• Historical Museum (1B Chernomorska St, on the central square). The town’s collection was founded on 14 November 1956 and moved into a purpose-built building in 2003. It traces the area’s story up to 1940, with a special place for Chirakman, finds from the large old Bulgarian pottery centre excavated near the village of Topola, and coin hoards that show Kavarna’s links with Byzantium, Venice and the West (Wikipedia (BG)). It is site 24b in the 100 National Tourist Sites, with the stamp kept at the ticket desk (Bulgarian Tourist Union).
• Dobrudzha and the Sea fills the domed stone hamam built in the early 15th century: stone anchors, amphorae from underwater expeditions, and a treasury hall with coins and a Thracian gold treasure (Wikipedia (BG)). The municipality describes the hamam, the restored town bath and the old fountain beside them as one museum complex (Kavarna Municipality).
• The ethnographic house, a late 19th-century family home, shows how Dobrudzhans, settlers from the Kotel area and the Gagauz lived. It has a garden of mulberries and peonies.
• St George church dates from 1836 and is the oldest surviving Revival-era building in town. It was burnt during the Kavarna uprising of 1877 and has a carved walnut and cherry iconostasis from 2007. St George is the town’s patron, so 6 May is Kavarna’s official holiday (Wikipedia (BG)). The Dormition church of 1860 was the centre of the local fight for services in Bulgarian, and its iconostasis was carved by the Debar masters Vasil and Filip Avramov (Wikipedia (BG)).

Opening hours and ticket prices are not published on an official page we could check, so ask at the museum or the municipality (+359 570 8 18 18) before a special trip.

Down the valley to the harbour

The walk from the centre to the sea follows a valley that once had 12 spring-fed fountains. Three have been renovated, and the oldest stands below St George next to the hamam (Kavarna Municipality). At the bottom are six stone grain storehouses from the Revival era, protected as architectural monuments and partly built of blocks taken from the Chirakman fortress (Kavarna Municipality). Today the harbour has a small yacht port and a fishing base, and a spacious artificial beach has been laid out beside it (Wikipedia (BG)).

Kavarna and rock music

From 2006 to 2016 the town hosted Kavarna Rock Fest (Kaliakra Rock Fest until 2010), with bands such as Manowar, Motörhead, Scorpions and Deep Purple. After the mayor behind it left office, the municipality stopped the festival for financial reasons (Wikipedia (BG)). What remains is the Rock Alley in the town park. Its bronze monument to Ronnie James Dio, paid for by donations, was unveiled on 23 October 2010. A monument to the Bulgarian rocker Georgi Minchev followed in 2013 (Wikipedia (BG)).

Yailata, Bolata and the coast east of town

• Cape Kaliakra pushes 2 km into the sea with cliffs up to 70 m. It has been a nature and archaeological reserve since 1960 (Kavarna Municipality). Getting there, the fortress and the legends are covered on our north coast page.
• Bolata is a narrow gorge on the north side of Kaliakra with the only sandy beach in the cape area. It has been in the Most Beautiful Bays in the World club since 2013 and is reached by a narrow turn-off from the Balgarevo–Kaliakra road (Kavarna Municipality). It is about 14 km from the centre by road (OSRM).
• Yailata (Яйлата) is a seaside terrace below 50–60 m cliffs, 1.5 km south of Kamen Bryag and declared an archaeological reserve in 1989. It has a cave “town” of 101 dwellings settled in the 5th millennium BC, rock-cut family tombs of the 3rd–5th centuries, a sanctuary facing the sunrise and a late 5th-century fortress with four towers (Kavarna Municipality). Over 178 bird species have been recorded, and spring and autumn, when irises and peonies flower and migration passes overhead, are the best times. It is about 24 km by road from central Kavarna (OSRM).
• Taukliman (Bird Bay), by the Rusalka holiday village, is a 4 km landslide coast with small beaches and mineral water, about 6 km north-east of Kaliakra.

Want a guided trip instead? Tours to Kaliakra from Varna and the resorts are sold on external sites; we only link to them and take no bookings ourselves.

How do you get to Kavarna from Varna?

• Bus: for Tuesday 3 November 2026, Varna Bus Station listed six departures to Kavarna: 08:50, 09:30, 12:30, 15:00, 17:20 and 18:40, from sectors 5 and 6, taking 1 h 20 to 1 h 30. The 08:50, 12:30, 15:00 and 18:40 are Varna–Shabla buses that stop in Kavarna. The station advises checking on 0700 200 24 the day before, as times change.
• Car: about 61 km from Varna Bus Station, roughly an hour (OSRM), passing Balchik. It is easy to combine with Balchik palace and botanical garden or a stop in Albena.
• Local trips: Varna Bus Station lists no buses to Chirakman, Bolata, Kaliakra or Yailata, so you will need a car, a taxi or a long walk.

How to plan the day

• Morning: the museum, the hamam and St George in the centre, then walk down the valley past the fountains to the storehouses and the harbour.
• Midday: climb onto Chirakman for the view over the bay.
• Afternoon: drive to Bolata and Kaliakra, or north to Yailata for the caves and fortress, ideally in the softer evening light.
• Bad weather: the museum, the hamam and the ethnographic house are all indoors and close together.

Coordinates © OpenStreetMap contributors.