easyJet have announced they are launching a new service from Manchester to Sofia in Bulgaria from December 11th 2008.

Some flights cost as little as £33 for the outward journey and just £23 for the return making them the cheapest of all airlines flying to Bulgaria.

Check out our review of easyJet’s service from Gatwick for an idea of what to expect.

Many people from the UK are making their way over to Eastern Europe to save on large amounts of dental work which can often run into many thousands of pounds.

The dental holiday tries to combine a relaxing break with a bargain dental work to make the prospect even more reliable. The majority of dentists are based in Sofia as this is easy to get to and a great place to base yourself for a quick break.

To save even more money, you should consider a holiday package from Budget Bulgaria. The low-cost car hire and hotel packages can help keep the costs as low as possible. When combined with a cheap flight from one of the low cost airlines, the total holiday cost can be less than £100 for a couple of days.

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If You’re travelling to Bulgaria for the first time, you’ll want to know a little bit about the currency,

The currency in Bulgaria is the lev and the plural is leva. You may well see the acronym BGN used in currency conversion as this is the equivalent to GBP, EUR or USD.

There are 100 stotinki (equivalent to pence or cents) to 1 lev.

The coins used are 1, 2, 5, 10, 20, 50 stotinki and a 1 lev. The banknotes available are 2, 5, 10, 20, 50, and 100 leva.

The lev exchange rates are fairly stable.

At the moment 1 Lev = £0.40 GBP / €0.51 EUR / $0.80 USD

This makes it very easy to calculate if you’re used to Euros, just half everything. It’s a bit harder to convert to pounds in your head but you quickly get used to it.

Bulgaria is planning to join the Euro in 2012 which will simplify things further for residents of other Eurozone countries. British visitors to Bulgaria are also likely to benefit as it’s more likely they will be familiar with the value of their holiday money.

It’s not all good news though. Our Bulgarian friends are predicting the prices of everything will rise as retailers take advantage of the initial confusion of the value of the new currency. Prices are typically rounded up the nearest unit.