Tips for a Skiing Holiday in Bulgaria

The holiday I have just taken in Bansko was my second trip to Bulgaria. Two years ago I skied in Borovets. Now that I am able to ski reasonably well I don’t think I would ever go back to Bulgaria. I went to the country because I thought it would be cheap alternative to more popular destinations in Southern and Western Europe. Two years ago in Borovets this may have been true but today in Bansko it most certainly isn’t.

Don’t get me wrong, some food and drink is cheap in Bansko. I found an enormous bottle of beer in one of the many convenience stores for only 2.20 Lev (£1.10). Unfortunately some places for instance at the bottom of the slopes or in prime locations on the main road sell poor quality food at highly inflated prices. The taxi drivers will also try and fleece you on every journey.

Getting to Bansko and back from Sofia Airport is not straight-forward. I tried to do so using public transport and taxis but both were problematic. For anyone visiting Bansko I highly recommend pre-booking a private transfer and taking with you a map of your accommodation for the driver. If you are going to take a taxi in the country then make sure the tariff is displayed in the window, the meter is on and you ask for a receipt at your destination. This forces the driver to declare the journey and makes it more difficult to vastly over charge you. You could also hire a car but I wouldn’t recommend doing so unless you have Sat Nav and are experienced at driving in snow.

If you really do want to catch the bus, save money and the environment then you need to get the number 84 or 284 from the airport to Hotel Pliska. From there you change and catch the 213, 214, 305 or 313 to Sofia Central Station. The buses from Central Station to Bansko run only until around 2pm so if you arriving later then you will need to travel from the airport to Ochva Kupel bus station. This is on the other side of the city and you will need to get a taxi. Beware this can be costly, especially if you use one of the illegal touts who will approach you in the airport. Returning from Bansko the latest bus to travel to Central Station in the morning is at 7:20am an it will be busy. If you want to head back later then you will need to travel to Ochva Kupel. The tourist information centre on the main road from the Gondola to the town can give you an up to date list of bus times. The journey will cost around 12-14 Lev each way.

The actual ski conditions in Bansko are great as long as there has been a good amount of snow recently. There are some fantastic runs to enjoy if you are not an advanced skier. If you are just starting out or improving from beginner level then it is a good location to progress. Anyone remotely competent on skis would be advised to seek out a destination with a larger selection of slopes to explore otherwise you may end up bored.

There are not many people who speak good English in the town so finding information or understanding restaurant menus can be difficult. If possible try and learn a few phrases before you travel to the country… not an easy task for the English native as the alphabet is completely different!

When walking through Bansko in the evening you will be approached by countless people on the street trying to entice you into their bars and restaurants. These establishments employ staff for this purpose because their food and reputation alone is not enough to fill the empty seats. It becomes very tiresome trying to avoid these people. The best places to eat are those full of locals away from the busy main streets.

If you are looking to hire your equipment then don’t pre-book on the Internet. I did so thinking I would get the best equipment at the best prices. In fact when you get to the resort there are ski hire shops all over the place and many do better deals than you can find on the Internet. You will not be left stuck without any equipment and when you get there you can walk around and take your pick.

You can collect your skis in the evening before your first day on the slopes. You can also buy your lift pass at this time and I recommend doing so. In the morning the queue to buy lift passes can be huge. You then have to queue for an equal amount of time for the gondola. It is best to get to the gondola before it opens at 8:30am especially at the weekend when it is very busy. When I was there it was less busy Monday to Friday and I could hop on at midday without queuing. You wont be able to do this at the weekend.

You might consider buying half-day lift passes unless you are a morning person and keen to get on the slopes before midday. I found that after a couple of days I was happy to stay in bed a bit longer and hit the slopes at midday. This still gives you four to five hours of skiing for less than half the price.

I don’t want to discourage anyone from visiting Bansko or indeed Bulgaria. The mountains in Bansko are beautiful and if you are going in a group I’m sure you will have a great time. For couples there isn’t a great deal to do other than ski, eat and drink. I personally found many of the people in the town to be rude and unwelcoming. I was also a little bored after a few days when I had been on all of the ski runs.

Bulgaria may have once been a good option for cheap winter sports holidays but right now I think more popular destinations such as Austria, Switzerland and France are worth considering instead.

Day 8 – The Long Mission to London

I am writing this post from Sofia Airport accompanied by the most depressing ‘bing-bong’ in the world. The airport announcement system plays out a rather sombre church bell effect which you expect to be followed by “Bring out your dead!” rather than flight information. We have a 30 minute delay which means it will be 8 hours from leaving the apartment this morning at 7am to take-off at 3pm.

The day started predictably with the standard over-charging by the taxi driver. We paid 10 Lev to get to the bus station when it should have been only 5. At the bus station we were approached by a random man trying to get us to take his private vehicle to the airport but we managed to shake him off. There are no English signs at the station but we were able to figure out that we needed to buy a ticket inside then hopped on the 7:20am bus which arrived on-time. The cost is 14 Lev to Sofia Central Station. Now I am using the word ‘bus’, but it would be more accurate to call it a coach. We’re not talking about an operation along the lines of National Express here. It’s more like Betty and Albert who have hired an old coach and decided to lay on a daily service to the City to put food on the table. Albert is the driver and Betty collects your ticket as you get on. Neither speak English.

The coach was very busy when we got on but it emptied out after an hour or so when it stopped for a short break. We didn’t have a clue what was going on because the announcement was in Bulgarian. I took the opportunity to take a toilet break. Inside the station is a shabby little public convenience with a plate outside asking for 0.30 Lev. Inside it was grotty and there was no toilet paper. I decided not to bother leaving any money and an angry man shouted something at me as I walked out. I ignored him.

A couple of hours later we arrived at the ‘shiny new’ Sofia Central Bus Station after a slow journey through the run down slums lining the city. I’m pleased to note that Bulgaria does not shut down at the hint of snow fall like the UK. In fact they have old women out shovelling snow from the roads as you approach the City Centre!

At the bus station there are no English signs and both of the cash machines were out of order. I approached the Information Desk to figure out how to get to the airport. If there was a suggestion box I would have written “rename the Information Desk to Rude Desk”. I was greeted by possibly the most rude woman in Bulgaria. She was thoroughly unimpressed that I had interrupted her phone conversation to ask for directions to the airport. She handed me a printed bit of paper that said “Hotel Pliska” followed by a load of bus numbers.

After pondering the information for a few moments I went back to the desk to ask where to go for these busses. She grunted “train station” and ushered me away. I managed to deduce that we needed to catch a bus from outside the train station to the Hotel Pliska and then change for the 84 or 284 to the Airport.

Thankfully a man in the street was able to understand us and told us which bus stop to use. The bus signs are all in Bulgarian so it is impossible to navigate without assistance.

I’ve come to the conclusion that the City bus service must be free for non-Bulgarian speakers. I say this because try though we did, we could not manage to buy a ticket. A kind lady told us we could buy a ticket on the bus from the driver. When we tried to do so he looked at me like he wanted to punch me and grunted. We ended up not paying for either of the busses because nobody asked for our tickets or offered to sell them to us.

The biggest challenge of the day was looking for the Hotel Pliska so we would know when to get off. After some time we decided we had gone too far and would get off. Mario braved the ‘don’t talk to me’ face of the passengers and showed one of them our bit of paper. By a stoke of luck we were at the said hotel. If we hadn’t asked then we would never have known because although the hotel might be called Pliska it doesn’t say this anywhere on the building in characters that an English speaker would understand. When we got off we were in the middle of nowhere trying to understand the signs as you can see in the photo.

At the Airport don’t expect paradise. Even the new terminal is rather small and lacking in facilities. A can of Fanta costs 5 Lev at the Cafe in the check-in area. That’s £2.50! Earlier in the day we bought a big bottle from a bus station in the middle of nowhere for 1 Lev.

If you are travelling to / from and using Sofia Airport then I’m afraid I can’t recommend the bus route. If I ever had to come back here then I would definitely pre-book a private transfer direct from the airport to the accommodation and back.

Tomorrow I will post a round up of my tips for any Brits travelling to Bulgaria for a skiing holiday.

Day 7 – Champion of the Ice!

Today was my favourite day of skiing. We didn’t quite manage the early start we had planned but when we did get going it was worth it. After five days of skiing we were getting tired and didn’t feel like going up the mountain again but we managed to drag ourselves to the gondola for around midday. At this time there was no queue – a stark contrast from the busy weekend where we waited for an hour. I’m pleased to report my most successful day of skiing – I didn’t fall over all day :-) The slopes were particularly hard and icy today which provided an exciting and fast pace. Mario challenged me to our first and only race – on red route number 7 (Stara Pista). I recommend trying this… you can really let yourself go! I’m happy to say I won although Mario did have an injured knee and said he had to stop because he was laughing thinking I was out of control. How rude.

Our final lunch of the holiday took the form of a pizza from Friends Snack Bar at the bottom of run number 6. This has been our feeding place of choice for lunch breaks and I recommend it to anyone visiting Bansko. It has the best food at good prices and the staff are very friendly.

For some reason the lifts at the very top of the mountain were closed today so we were restricted in the runs that we could take. The wind was particularly strong so I suspect this may have been the reason. Sadly information about lift status is not particularly accessible on the ground in Bansko. There is a good website at BanskoSki.com which has descriptions and videos of the runs along with the current and forecast weather and lift / slope status. There is a bit of a mystery about Ctzurna Mogila (number 14) which appears on the maps but is not mentioned on the website. The lift has been closed all week so we have not been able to try this run. I suspect it is going to be closed for a long time. The website also shows that run number 12 is closed – which it sort of is… there is a tiny bit of orange fence at the top of it, but we followed some snow-boarders down it today and had great fun.

Before we called it a day we took the ski road down to two little gems – runs 15 and 16 - which you can also get to from the intermediate gondola station. On the printed map I got from the ski hire shop the are red but on a map I got from the Internet one is red and the other black then blue. They are both very steep but have a great long gentle finish where you can go for gold. At the end you can take a chair lift back to the top and try the other run. The adrenaline rush is great and I am declaring these short slopes my favourite in the resort.

Last night we ate in the Italian restaurant near the gondola – Stella di Mare as pictured left. Like most of the eateries in Bansko the food will not be winning any awards but it was pleasant enough. The place is always busy and the prices reasonable. I would just like to point out the policy of rounding-up which seems to be commonplace in Bansko. This was highlighted last night where the waiter added a random couple of items to the bill for 1 Lev each but we had no idea what they were. My best guess is a service charge although the service was sadly lacking in quality. When we paid the bill the waiter gave us our change minus 0.90 Lev which he must have decided to keep to make his life easier. The same thing happens at the loos where you have to pay 0.50 Lev to use the shabby facilities at the bottom of the slopes. If you try and pay the woman with 1 Lev then don’t expect any change!

Today was my last day of skiing and my last full day in Bansko. Tomorrow morning I have to catch the bus to Sofia Central Station at 07:20 am. This is the last bus of the day that goes to Central Station!! You can travel later in the day to Ochva Kupel but this is further away from the airport and can be costly in a taxi. Talking of taxis we popped into the rather useful Tourist Information Centre earlier where a helpful English man was ready to answer our travel queries. He told us that the taxis should charge around 1 Lev per kilometre and may add 2.50 when you get in. You should make sure the rates are displayed in the window, make sure the meter is running when you get in and ask for a receipt at the destination. This means the driver has to declare the journey to his company and makes it more difficult to rip you off. Something which is sadly commonplace in Bansko. We are getting a taxi from the gondola to the bus station in the morning which should cost 5 Lev… but when we got here we paid 7 times a much to come from Razlog which is only 7km away.

I’ll make a final post when I get home to London tomorrow but for now here is a little video of my skiing efforts today.