The cities Vidin and Belogradchik, some historic sites and natural wonders of north-western Bulgaria were visited by over 54 000 tourists during the holidays.

Over 4 000 tourists visited the historic sites in Vidin during the holidays, announced Margarita Radulova, historician in the Museum of Vidin. The medieval fortress “Baba Vida” and the museum “Konaka” were the places that attracted the most tourists. During the weekend, the fortress was viewed by over 4 000 tourists, with over 150 of them being foreigners.

The harbour of Vidin expects over 90 tourist ships full of organized groups of British, French, Swiss and Scandinavian tourists during the spring-summer season.

There were over 5000 tickets sold during the holidays. Margarita Radulova noted that this was a record by itself, because the visits for the entire month of April were 3 800, and for March – 1 800. Vidin expects much more tourists than in 2008, when 42 000 people visited the city.

The city Belogradchik also experiences a tourist rush. The great interest is most probably the result of the growing popularity of the rock formations near Belogradchik, nominated for one of the new seven wonders of the world and the massive advertising campaign surrounding the nomination.

Just for the days between May 1st and 6th, the city was visited by nearly 54 000 tourists attracted by it’s unique nature. This is a record for the last 20 years, said the mayor Emil Tsankov. At certain points during the holidays, there were as many as 9 000 tourists per day. Long queues of people stood in front of the famous fortress Kaleto, near the rock formations, inside the cave Magura. Belogradchik was visited by 19 000 tourists for the whole month of April.

The rush of tourists also revealed some imperfections in the organization. The number of hotels in the small city were not enough to accomodate such a number of people, and hotels were full a month before the holidays. The private hotels in Vidin, Kula and Montana were also full. Guests had to settle with sleeping in Vratsa, which is quite away from Belogradchik.

Restaurants were also unable to serve all the tourists, the parking lots were full, souvenir shops were empty at certain points. All these imperfections showed the citizens of Belogradchik the long way they have to go to solve key problems of their city.