How does parking in town work, and do I need a Bulgarian mobile contract for it?

Yes. Without a Bulgarian mobile contract of your own you cannot park here, and this is where most visitors come unstuck in their first summer. The coastal towns manage their central parking through zones; in Burgas there is a Blue and a Green one. You do not pay at a machine but by text message: registration number to a short code, 1356 for the Blue zone and 1357 for the Green. The municipal operator states expressly that customers of Bulgarian mobile providers pay this way. A German, Austrian or Swiss card on EU roaming will not do. So anyone buying a house here signs up with A1, Yettel or Vivacom in the first week; a prepaid card registered in your name is enough to begin with. It costs little, takes a quarter of an hour in the shop, and you need your passport. Svetlana comes along and sorts it out on the spot. Without that number every paid parking space on the coast stays closed to you.