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The sea breeze is salty and cooling.The operatic calls of the young men selling corn on the cob accompany the gru√ hums of jet skis and the percussive gushing and smashing of the Black Sea.Topless Western European girls lounge beside portly Russian grandmothers.Wild gangs of preteen boys overrun the shoreline, dribbling soccer balls through the sand castles built by naked squealing toddlers.There are more than five thousand people enjoying the glorious day on the narrow band of beach in the resort of Albena.The fine sands on the shore are similar to the soft, pale grains in Koh Samui or Antigua.But compared to the lush, tropical ambience of Thailand or the Caribbean, Bulgaria feels distinctly European.There are no palm trees, no thatched huts, and the local peddlers threading their way through the sun-worshipping tourists are paler-skinned and carefully covered with thick, white smears of waterproof sunscreen.Looking out toward the sea, you see the usual array of water-sport equipment found at any major beach resort-paragliders, water skis, and paddle boats.This could be Greece, Italy, or France, but a glance inland at the towering, cement hotels-monolithic pillars of totalitarian architecture-betrays the landscape's communist past.Few people outside of Europe think of Bulgaria as a tourist destination, but German, British, French, and Scandinavian visitors have been descending on the country en masse since the mid-1960s.In addition to its pristine beaches, Bulgaria is blessed with four mountain ranges, including the Balkan Mountains after which the entire peninsula is named.The other three ranges are home to international ski resorts that attract winter holidaymakers from across the continent.Bulgaria is also well