. bg ski news : Laugh all the way to Bansko - 19 January 2007 - 21:56
It's cheap, uncrowded, the lifts work and it's got some snow. Could Bansko in Bulgaria be the new Andorra?
Felice Hardy, The Guardian Saturday January 13 2007. It is 15 years since my last ski trip to Bulgaria and the mountain is unrecognisable. Gone are the ancient lifts and long queues; gone, too, are the cheap hotels with bathplugs that don't fit and cold spaghetti for breakfast.
Instead, I find a state-of-the-art lift system outside the door of my five-star hotel, a bedroom that wouldn't look out of place in St Moritz, a healthy breakfast, and a thirtysomething après-ski scene.
I am in Bansko, a quaint town dating back to medieval times, which over the past two years has been transformed into a winter destination that can truly compete with the Alps - at a fraction of the cost.
Other tired ski destinations in Bulgaria, Romania and Slovakia have failed to progress since the fall of communism, largely because of their inability to attract the multi-million pound investment required to build a modern lift system. But Ulen, a wealthy Sofia-based investment group, took up the cudgel and bravely built a €130m lift system along with a new "village" at the foot of the mountain with luxury hotels and apartments.
The improvements have been sufficient to lure the German Kempinski hotel group into lending its name to a new five-star hotel in prime position on the edge of the piste, the Hotel Grand Arena.
The downside for the present is that the whole town is a building site, with cranes everywhere you look. Unfortunately, the roads have yet to receive the same investment, and it is a spine-jarring 160km transfer from Sofia airport on heavily pot-holed roads. And away from the modern developments, ancient houses - most of them ripe for renovation - give the place a time-warped character. It's icy underfoot and you have to watch out for pot-holes and the odd gaping drain.
But the gleaming new Doppelmayr gondola takes 25 minutes to transport you up to the start of the 65km ski area and a further network of half a dozen modern chairlifts rising to 2,500m. I never saw a queue during my visit and the slopes were blissfully empty. Even in high season, the area attracts considerably fewer skiers than the big-name resorts in other countries. And the ski hire shop next door to my hotel offers a six-day package of skis and boots for £43.50.
Bansko eclipses better-known Borovets in every respect. It has the best snow record and the longest ski season (mid-December to mid-May) of all the Bulgarian resorts. The skiing is surprisingly good, with the lower runs through the trees and open bowl skiing at the top of the area, which during my visit offered fresh tracks in deep powder. There is scope for enlarging the ski area further to something on a par with a medium-sized Austrian resort.
A warming mountain restaurant, the Bla-Bla, makes a longed-for stop for hot chocolate, followed later by lunch at Banderiza - or "beer barrel" - at the gondola summit. In both places, you sit at shared tables in simple but attractive surroundings of rough wooden floors and panelled walls. The food, too, is basic but reasonably priced - lunch for two around £10 including a bottle of local wine.
Back in the village, most of the après-ski is provided by 100 traditional taverns called mehanas. Competition is keen - the resort's population is only 10,000 - and "greeters" dressed in national costume loiter outside the larger ones beckoning tourists to enter. My chosen mehana had an open fire, red and black checked tablecloths, striped Turkish-style rugs and upholstery, live folk music and a good selection of Bulgarian wines.
The menu sounded promising - I chose honey roast lamb for £4.90, in preference to the tripe soup and diced liver soup (66p each), but my lamb turned out to be only slightly more appetising than the soups and I was reminded that Bulgaria hasn't changed in every respect.
· Neilson (0870 3333347, neilson.co.uk) offers seven nights' half-board at the Kempinski Hotel Grand Arena, Bansko, from £505pp including flights and transfers.