Above: The grounds of the Naval Museum.
Killing time
Just like in Istanbul last week, we have a long day to kill before an evening flight. We fly from Varna to Larnaca at 2025. The difference is that Istanbul is a big city with limited exploration whereas we didn’t want to get wet and salty with nowhere to wash up after check-out. And my skin is already flaking from all the sun and there’s more coming in Larnaca and Malta.
All the spare time we had today would have been great for admin and fixing up problems but we have many. Checking out at 1130, we went to the Naval Museum nearby for a wander. Kim paid a little extra to enter the torpedo boat outside.
As we weren’t hungry yet, we spent some time in the Sea Garden near the representation of the Black Sea. I spent some time noting the various countries cities that surround this body of water.
We took lunch after 1300 at what’s now our regular eatery of pre-cooked food. A big cuppa tea at Starbucks followed. Kim said the staff here understand him better than in Los Angeles. Perhaps in the USA, they’re simply not used to the concept of hot tea with milk. Or it could be the staff whose native tongue is Spanish. Soon enough, it was time for us to return to our accommodation to collect our bags.
I ordered a taxi around 1600 and that got us to Varna airport around 1630, some 4h before departure. Even though Wizz Air has a sizeable operation from Varna, there were only 2 flights this evening. And it appears they don’t operate a common check-in, so we had to wait until their “-2 hour” opening .
There wasn’t much seating around and the landside lounge wasn’t available to us. Food and drinks were horrendously overpriced at the airport at more than double the city price. We made do for an hour and a half before queueing for bag-drop. I saw on Flightradar24 that our aircraft had not left Memmingen. A delay seemed likely as it as a minimum turnaround at Varna for our flight.
Varna vs Constanta
Having been to both Black Sea resort cities of Constanta and Varna, we can draw some comparisons:
- Varna has a pleasant old city which consists of pedestrianised areas which then slope down to a large garden and then the beach clubs and eateries. Constanta’s old city isn’t very happening.
- One can have a decent beach holiday staying in central Varna but probably not in central Constanta.
- Both cities have resort accommodation which span many kilometres towards the north. Varna’s accommodation choices are much more glamorous and probably reflected in the price.
- The sand in Varna is paler and finer compared to Constanta’s. The water was nicer clearer as well, at least on some days. On one day, Varna’s coast was full of awful seaweed but they disappeared as suddenly as they had appeared.
- It’s definitely easier to have a nice holiday in Varna but we don’t regret visiting both. We were on reward flights and only seats to Constanta were available. It all helped us get away from the Auckland winter.
Departing Varna
Once airside, we wanted to carefully plan our dinner purchase to use up our remaining local money. McDonald’s didn’t have prices displayed so I looked at the very nice paninis opposite.
With our choices made and ordered, we were shocked to realise that the prices were in EUR rather than BGN, which is nearly double. That would bring the prices in line with the landside outlet that I saw earlier. Yeah, the prices airside initially seemed too good to be true. That’s the problem with two older folks with long-sightedness.
We brought our sandwiches into the lounge which only provided drinks and snacks. It was a very nice lounge with access to an outdoor area. Here we learnt that our flight had a 50 min delay. Leaving the lounge, we were shocked by the crowds airside. While the airport is nice, it’s obviously not designed to handle the volume it now puts through.
Before boarding, I couldn’t resist going to McDonald’s to check out their prices since other outlets seem very inflated with their pricing. No bull, this was the most expensive McDonald’s we’ve ever seen and the add-ons to make it a meal kinda doubled the price as well!
Arriving in Larnaca
We landed at 2300 at Larnaca and disembarked by stairs. It appears that Wizz is like some other budget airlines, opting not to pay for the airbridge. We hiked up two storeys on metal steps to get into the arrival levels of the airport. The non-EU queue for passport control was short and we were out with our bags and onto a taxi 25 mins after touchdown.
We initially exited to the bus stand located at the end of the terminal hoping to catch the last bus to the city as we were bang on its departure time. But that location was for the intercity bus to Nicosia and the local city buses were on the next level up. As we had probably just missed the last bus, we took a taxi.
It was a fixed rate ride of EUR20 with a half-Congolese half-Greek man who was well-spoken and friendly. We reached the Sun Hall Hotel Apartments about 10 mins later.
We retired around 0100 but I had trouble sleeping till around 0200.