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Salt pans
The Burgas salt lakes are an interesting tourist attraction on the northern outskirts of the city.
Across the vast expanse of Lake Atanasovsko, salt is harvested in numerous salt pans, which are characterised by their typically pink-coloured water.
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Enjoy a mud and salt bath
The salt pans remain an active industrial area, but tourists can still visit the site via the main entrance.
You can stroll along the wooden walkways here and even take a dip in two salt lakes.
As well as the salt baths, you can also treat yourself to a mud bath here.
There are no fresh-water showers available by the pools to wash off the salt and mud. Showers can be used for 2 bgn at the adjacent restaurant (exact cash only).
Admission and opening hours
The pools are open to the public every day from 8.00 am to 5.00 pm.
Admission costs 4 eur and can be paid for at the turnstile by card or cash.
How to get there
Getting to the salt lakes is quite complicated. If you don’t feel confident travelling independently from the resorts, some local travel agencies offer trips from 45 bgn.
If you’re travelling around Bulgaria in a hire car, there’s a free car park right by the entrance. The turn-off from the main road between Burgas and the airport is clearly signposted.
Public transport does not go to the salt pans, and there are no bus stops within a reasonable distance. The nearest part of town with a bus service is over 3 km away.
However, a tourist train runs from the centre of Burgas to the salt pans.
A great way to get there is by bike. A new cycle path runs along the coast to the salt pans, and you can cycle there from the city centre in under 30 minutes.
Burgas has a shared e-bike scheme accessible via the Burgas Bikes mobile app (Google Play / App Store). The charge for one hour is 2 bgn.
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Any questions left?
If you have any questions or comments about the article...
This will need to be set straight. 🙂
Entry is definitely not free (for quite a few years now). The entrance fee is 8 BGN and can be paid in a machine with a turnstile with both cash and card.
You can pay for a massage in the area. 20 minutes will cost you 30 BGN, longer massages are more affordable.
What you will NOT find in the complex is water for washing. One of the nearby restaurants runs toilets and showers, you pay 2 BGN for the toilet (free for restaurant customers) and for 2 minutes of running water you have to throw another 2 BGN into the coin box.
Opposite this restaurant there is another one + a shop and in between there is an ice cream stand.
Transport to the salt baths is not complicated. It's a 4km walk from Sarafovo and less than 3km from the Burgas seaside park, but it's also possible to take a road train or similar modes of tourist transport. There used to be a train from Sarafovo as well, but sometimes a piece of the road was torn off by the sea during the covid, which is still going on and the local government is successfully ignoring the problem for a change. For now, the rest of the road can be walked and cycled.
Individual travel is not the only way to visit this place. With a bit of effort, you can google travel agencies that organize trips there, e.g. from Sunny Beach for 45 BGN.
The salt lake is certainly not a little known tourist attraction. The proof is that you will commonly hear Czech, Slovak, Polish and other languages spoken there.
Thanks, I'll edit!