Back to Bulgaria - Part 2

It's Christmas!

Christmas Day (Eastern Orthodox at least), and after a coffee or two with Chris I'm off, turns out to be easy enough to get to Borovets by public transport, metro to Joliot Curie station, walk to the nearby Southern Bus Station, and then a bus to Samokov.  Why there is this second bus station, pretty much just serving Samokov as far as I can tell, I don't know.  It's an hours drive to Samokov, the fare being a whole six Lev (around three pounds), and then another bus to Borovets, this only takes twenty minutes or so and costs a whopping one Lev thirty.  Plenty of time to settle into my hotel - sort of, turns out it is full, but this just means I get a perfectly nice, and thank goodness warm, room in the hotel next door.  Also a free glass of wine every night as compensation :)  Turns out just to be me for dinner tonight, and it is quite a feast, borscht, cured meat and cheese, burgers with salad, and some rather tasty biscuits.  Things go downhill when I go to pick up my skis though - a school party is there, I don't see any option but to wait for them to finish before I can get served - in the end this takes nearly two hours.  Still, just time for a beer or two before bed, in an apres ski bar where they are doing that 'hammer a nail into a log' game.  And why not.

Skiing along, in a winter wonderland.

I survive the threatened minus twenty overnight temperature, consume toast, coffee and more biscuits for breakfast, and walk uphill to the slopes.  It's good, there sure is a lot of snow, and I pretty much have enough layers on to cope with the cold.  There are only twenty or so runs here, but they are very long - the one gondola covers over four kilometres, and climbs over a thousand metres of altitude!  So while I do end up doing the same runs quite a few times, it isn't too repetitive.  Mostly we are talking reds, with a few blues and blacks too, and on one side a long green crossing back and forth, pretty good for me then.  There is also the very, very long Musala pathway coming down from the top of the gondola, which is a lovely run through the trees, though a bit flat in places.  In fact most of the runs here are through pine forest, very pretty at the moment with all the snow.

Looking North towards Sofia and Mount Vitosha.

After that first night the food sadly goes a bit downhill, as per my blog from four years ago, we get a buffet, and the idea of keeping the food warm still hasn't caught on it seems.  Nor is the food itself very special, we get chicken nuggets, pizza and burgers - well, I guess given it cost something like two pounds a night I can hardly complain.  One evening at least there are some rather tasty stuffed vine leaves, and generally the soup is fine.  Oh and all you can eat biscuits and / or cake, so I am happy.  Of course there is plenty of beer to be had here too, I frequent Bobby's bar up near the slopes, three Lev fifty for a half litre of Kamenitsa can not be sneezed at.

At the highest point.

There really is a lot of snow here - I can ski all the way down to my hotel, on the roads, just a shame about the walk back up.  Also, while I try to avoid skiing over gravel, at one point I hit a kerb crossing a road which gouges a large chunk out of the ski, hopefully the hire place won't mind.  More snow comes down most days, in fact on the Tuesday it snows so hard that I give up on the skiing after an hour or two.  Then on Wednesday there are strong winds, so much that many of the chairs, and the upper half of the gondola, are shut, which does make for a few queues at those lifts that remain open.  But after that the weather clears up, and on the last day there are even blue skies, and that wind has blown the snow off the trees making the place look very green.  It really is a beautiful resort here, particularly the wooded lower slopes, and many of the hotels are pleasantly built too, a far cry from the concrete monstrosities that seem to fill many French resorts.  So yeah, this was all good fun, good to get a proper week of skiing in, and I manage not to injure myself.  The hire shop does indeed not notice any damage I've done to the skis, and somehow I get through the journey back to England - this involves four buses and a metro journey in Bulgaria, the plane of course, and then a coach and train in the UK.  Phew...

Photos to go with this post can be found here.