Cape Kaliakra

The story of Cape Kaliakra

Cape Kaliakra is the long, narrow headland in front of you, and the first thing to notice is the drop: the cliffs fall 70 metres into the sea on either side. It is a nature reserve as well as a cape, so the place is known both for its landscape and for the wildlife that passes through it. Dolphins and cormorants can be seen here, and in spring and autumn it sits on the Via Pontica, a major bird migration route from Africa into Northern and Eastern Europe.

The cape has been a fortified place for a very long time. The earliest settlement here dates back to the 4th century BC, when the Thracian tribe of Tiris lived on the headland and gave it the name Tirisis. Later, the ancient geographer Strabo placed the capital of King Lisimachus here, and the site went on to be expanded in Roman times. In the Hellenistic era a second fortress wall was built farther inland, then in 341–342 round towers were completed, and in the second half of the 4th century a third fortification went even farther from the tip of the peninsula, with walls 10 m thick and 2.90 m thick.

What you can still read on the ground today are the remnants of that fortified complex: walls, a water-main, baths and the residence of Despot Dobrotitsa, who made this the medieval capital of the short-lived Despotate of Dobruja. Archaeological work on the cape has also uncovered 135 tombs, a building from the 4 th-5 th century AD that was used as a manufacturing facility, thresholds of furnaces where metals were smelted, and local workshops in a ten-meter corridor. A fragment of a pot handle with a cross, and symbols written in Proto-Bulgarian letters around it, turned up here too.

Cape Kaliakra also carries a later military history. It was the site of the naval Battle of Cape Kaliakra on 11 August 1791, during the Russo-Turkish War (1787–1792). After that, the cape entered the age of lighthouses: the first modern lighthouse here was built in 1866 by the Compagnie des Phares de l’Empire Ottoman. The present one is a 10-metre cylindrical stone masonry tower with lantern and gallery, erected in 1901. Its focal plane is 68 metres above sea level, and it gives a white flash every 5 seconds; it also has a radio navigation emitter and a foghorn.

The name itself has travelled through many languages. The Bulgarian form is Нос Калиакра, and the name Kaliakra is of Byzantine Greek origin, combining “καλός” and “άκρα” and traditionally translated as “Beautiful Headland.” That is a good description from where you are standing, with the rock projecting hard into the Black Sea. The reserve covers 713.67 hectare, and it is part of the 100 Tourist Sites of Bulgaria.

There are also stories attached to the place. One legend tells of 40 Bulgarian girls who tied their hair together and jumped into the Black Sea rather than be captured by the Ottomans, and an obelisk for that story stands at the entrance, called The Gate of the 40 Maidens. Another tells of Saint Nicholas, who escaped the Ottomans as the earth stretched out under him; a chapel built in 1993 marks his grave. Those are legends, but they help explain why this cape still feels charged with memory.

If you walk a little farther, look for the Bolata Cove just north of here, at the mouth of a canyon inside the reserve. The official site for the area is visit.varna.bg/en/nos-kaliakra-i-arheologicheski-rezervat-kaliakra.html, and the site is open every day from 9:00 AM to 7:00 PM.