Celebrating the New Year in Bansko |
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There would be many, many things to say about Bulgaria in general, about the New Year and about the activity of skiing as it can be performed in Bulgaria. I will fall far short of giving a detailed account of what it was like but I will try to touch a few of the more interesting points.
(+) The fabled Bansko skiing resort is allegedly created and managed by/with the help of some Austrians. The ski slopes are many and so are the ski lifts. There are many snow canons.
( - ) Sadly, it doesn't take much in the way of bad weather to knock out most of those ski lifts.
( - ) The 7 km long gondola taking skiers from the town to the Banderishka starting area is a big fat bottleneck. Call me strange but queuing for 2 hours to get on a ski lift is a big turn off. There were also too many Ukrainians who failed to understand queuing.
(+) Food is cheap! It's also very good!
( - ) Not all shopkeepers understand manners. I am mostly talking about the guy selling the hats who didn't want to let us take pictures.
(+) Lodging is cheap. Our apartments were really nice.
( - ) Everybody finishes skiing around 5 pm and goes straight into the showers. The result is there is either no water at all or no hot water for most of the evening.
Granted, many of the shortcomings I listed above might not have been so true if we'd gone to Bansko even slightly off-season. Going skiing for the New Year is usually a bad idea anywhere.
I was glad to discover that rumours of car-theft-related issues in Bulgaria were indeed greatly exagerated. I also had one close encounter with the Bulgarian police and I was basically asked for money in exchange for my documents on account of a debatable traffic violation. So, that part is true.
The conclusion is that we will likely never go to Bansko again, which is what you should actually gather the most feedback from.
You can see pictures of the trip to Bansko, of us on the ski slopes or a decent selection from the New Year celebrations.
If anyone is really interested I've also prepared a general expense report.
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