Burgas — Beer, Brass Bands and a Two-Week Trial Run

I gave the place two weeks to disappoint me. It needed a lot less than that to change my mind.

Burgas Coliving and I had been circling each other for years.

I’d followed them since they started posting their renovation on Instagram. Somewhere around 2022, I think. Which means it took me roughly four years to act on a mild interest. German efficiency, but applied to procrastination.

Spoiler: the delay turned out to be lucky. Not earned. Just lucky.

What I knew about Bulgaria (not much)

Bulgaria was one of those countries I knew by geography, history and reputation. Which is a polite way of saying I knew nothing.

Nothing about the people. Nothing about the culture. Nothing about how accurate my prejudices were. And let’s be honest about where those came from: my most frequent contact with anything Bulgarian had been the organised begging gangs in Cologne city centre.

That doesn’t sound nice. It isn’t. But pretending I arrived with an open, well-informed mind would be a lie, and a boring one.

So that was the baseline. Low bar. Easy to clear, you’d think.

The plan, and what was left of it

Of course there was a plan.

After my summer in Olhão I spent a few days at home in Cologne. A few days was plenty. The collective German mood hit me about four minutes after leaving the plane, and I was already looking for the exit.

My project was finished. Ahead of me: at least three months of doing absolutely nothing. The centrepiece of that nothing was a long motorcycle ride from Cologne to Burgas.

Then someone asked me to help out on another project. One I knew far too well and, annoyingly, really wanted to continue. The workaholic who pretends to be lazy strikes again.

Working on the road would stretch the ride from two weeks to four. A few days working, a few days riding, a bit of scenery in between. Doable.

The real problem was the way back. The plan was to ride straight from Burgas to Fuzeta in Portugal. That’s another four weeks of continuous riding, and there’s no working through that. Not safely. Not productively. Probably not at all.

So I did the grown-up thing and thought about it. Then I did the other grown-up thing and gave up.

The motorcycle stayed in Cologne. I booked a flight. Burgas got me with a backpack instead. The kind of downgrade that looks like minimalism if you squint.

The gamble

There was a detail I’ve been politely leaving out.

Back at Pomar Coliving at the start of the year, I didn’t get along particularly well with the second community manager. Not a bad person. Just not a good community manager. The kind of presence that doesn’t make you want to come back, mostly because there wasn’t much presence to speak of.

And during that stay I learned she’d be running the community in Burgas as well.

Same job. Same person. New country.

So here was the gamble: I really wanted to see Burgas and the coliving. I really didn’t want to spend a month somewhere the person in charge couldn’t make the place work.

I’d already moved my arrival two weeks earlier. So I gave the place, the people and the manager the benefit of the doubt, with a built-in exit. Two weeks. A trial run. Very German. Very romantic.

The motorcycle traveller without a motorcycle

First impressions are the baseline you measure everything else against. People, places, food, culture.

This trip didn’t have one first impression. It had a queue of them.

The first: another guest of the coliving, Ramon, was on the same plane. He’d spent the last two and a half years doing exactly what I’d planned to start. An open-ended motorcycle tour through Europe.

So we had things to talk about. Motorcycles. Travelling. Minimalism. And why I boarded after him despite paying for priority boarding while he hadn’t.

I still don’t have an answer to that last one. Airlines are a mystery best left unsolved.

Katya, at the airport, arguing with the police

The second surprise was being picked up by the owner herself, Katya.

She’d been waiting patiently near the airport for us to land. Long enough to get into an intense discussion with the airport police, who had opinions about how long you’re allowed to wait out front. She had opinions too.

So there was this very happy person, hugging us, loading us into the car, driving us to a pizza place and then on to the coliving.

All of it at speed. Argentina was playing at the 2026 World Cup, and apparently that’s not something you miss for two tired travellers and their luggage.

The Englishman who became Bulgarian

We joined the group watching the match. I’m not interested in football. But a big game is a surprisingly efficient way to read a group. Who shouts, who explains, who’s secretly on their phone.

I ended up in the beer garden of the coliving, a Beer Bastards can in hand, talking to a guy named Jak.

And we talked. And drank. And talked. And drank. We reached 2am without any noticeable effort, which I’d argue is the most honest form of bonding available to adults.

End of day one: a pretty good start. Suspiciously good.

A sanatorium, repurposed

So what is Burgas Coliving? A coliving in Burgas. Obviously.

Slightly less obviously: the building was originally a sanatorium, built for people visiting the mineral springs in the area. People used to come here to get healthier. We came here and discovered a brewery next door. Different era, different priorities.

It’s also not really in Burgas. It’s in Burgas Vetren, about 15km outside the city. The only connection is a single highway. No footpath, no bike lane. If you can’t do at least 60km/h, you’re taking the bus.

The first two weeks, as predicted

In hindsight, I’m very grateful for those first impressions. Without them, and the people I met in those first days, I’m fairly sure I’d have left after the trial run.

Because the thing I feared happened. Right on schedule.

A community manager who was barely around. Who didn’t show us the region. Who didn’t bring the group together. Same person, different place, same outcome. Pattern recognition isn’t a gift. Sometimes it’s just being right in a disappointing way.

What saved it was the community itself.

Jak dragged me to the neighbourhood craft beer garden and introduced me to the owners. And a guest who arrived a bit later turned out to be properly curious about the region, and talked a few of us into leaving the coliving bubble.

Not the tourist spots. Not the overpriced nightclubs built to empty foreign wallets. Actual local places, with actual Bulgarians who live there.

Two days of that changed my whole perspective. After two weeks I had the impression of experiencing Bulgarian life. Not thanks to the community manager. Thanks to part of the community.

I stayed (shocking, I know)

The trial run ended. I didn’t leave.

From then on, the community was mostly managed by Katya herself, more involved than she’d ever planned to be. Which brought a lot more genuine Bulgarian culture into the house.

What the community manager did in that time, I honestly couldn’t tell you. I looked. The volunteers did more, and volunteering is, by definition, optional.

The rest we managed ourselves.

Then the routine set in. The kind of routine that sounds dull when you write it down and is exactly what you want when you’re living it:

• Working on the aforementioned project, and getting most of what I’d planned for the next three months done in this one
• Workouts. Later with parts of the group, who joined voluntarily, which still surprises me
• A healthy dose of community drama. Every coliving has some. It’s basically the house’s reality TV
• Surviving fantastic Bulgarian and Georgian feasts
• Skipping the art projects. I’m not doing things I’m not interested in. That’s not a phase, that’s the personality

And one pillar held the whole structure up: the Metalhead Brewery next door.

Having that within walking distance is dangerous. For the liver, mainly. For everything else it was brilliant. A summer gathering spot for the whole house. Sports in the park, a fine lager afterwards. What could go wrong?

Nothing, as it turns out. They close early, so you’re never quite drunk enough to lose your way home. Where, naturally, you continue.

The last weekend

Time went by annoyingly fast.

My birthday and that of a friend in the coliving fell one day apart. His better half found out there was a beer and music festival in Burgas that very weekend. Two beer-loving idiots, one festival. The planning took about as long as reading that sentence.

It became my favourite part of the whole stay. Mostly because I decided, for once, to enjoy something without supervising myself.

I booked an apartment in the city for three nights. Partly for flexibility in my daily “what do I feel like” decisions. Mostly so I wouldn’t have to commute along that highway at night.

The festival ran Thursday to Sunday in the Sea Garden. Every late afternoon a great band, next to a wide range of Bulgarian street food made from everything the Black Sea and a pig have to offer. On the other side of the park, craft beer stands, keeping everyone responsibly hydrated until the band finished.

You’d think that was the end of the day’s music.

No.

A short walk down through the same park is Barabar, where another band would start about half an hour later. Efficient. I respect a city that schedules its nightlife like a train timetable.

Every band was Bulgarian. Every band had roots in Burgas in some form. Among them:

• BOiL
• КРЪПКАТА
• Yana
• Светльо & The Legends
• Таралеща / Taraleshta

The crowd at the festival, the crowd at Barabar, and three days of wandering the city in between. Fantastic. No qualifier needed, which is rare for me.

The three questions

Some places have a tradition: at the end of your stay, you answer three questions. So here we go.

What surprised you?

Probably obvious by now: that I didn’t leave after the first two weeks.

A handful of very good impressions outweighed one bad one. That’s not how my maths usually works.

What was your highlight?

Easy. The two days outside the coliving, exploring the region with people who knew it.

It was the first time in those two weeks I felt I was actually in touch with the place I was staying in. Which was great. And fun. In that order.

What was the worst thing about your stay?

Every morning after an evening at the brewery.

The beer was fantastic. My stomach was not always operating at the same level of enthusiasm as I was.

What stayed

Despite the mediocre start, it was a great stay. Great enough that I considered extending. I’ve done that before, and it wasn’t always a good idea. You only find out afterwards.

I met people I’d like to see again. Some of whom I’ll probably end up calling friends, once I’ve stopped being suspicious of the word.

And I was reminded, once again, that first impressions are hard to ignore. The bad ones included. But they’re allowed to change. Even mine.

As for the individual moments, that’s easy too. Most of them happened at the Metalhead Brewery. Which will surprise nobody who read the previous section. In early August they also threw a two-day craft beer festival, apparently an annual thing. I’ve already marked the date.

Then there was a feast at a Georgian restaurant with Jak. Worth it for the place alone, tucked away in a residential neighbourhood where no tourist would think to look. Which is exactly why it’s good. And a traditional Bulgarian feast, which made one thing very clear: Bulgarian stomachs are considerably bigger than ours. We didn’t win. We weren’t really competing.

There was the fishermen’s village and restaurant, which is also the best place for seafood and for a sunset in the region. The Barabar, with a lineup that was fantastic every single weekend. Every damn one. And, of course, the Rock Dog festival at the end of August. Hard to leave early from that one. I didn’t try very hard.

The verdict

Would I go back? Yes. And I will. It’s already arranged. Same time of year, more mobility. The motorcycle is getting its second chance.

Bulgarian, and more broadly Balkan, culture turned out to be fantastic. Full of energy and full of honesty. Which is a much better reputation than the one I arrived with. That one’s on me.

The coliving itself is fantastic too, as long as the people in it want to go out, share the place and actually enjoy it. Whoever the manager happens to be.