Bulgarian ski adventure

December 2017 

Continuing our quest to do something different, we decided to spend Christmas 2017 in Bulgaria, learning to ski. So a couple of days before Christmas, we boarded a flight to Sofia in Bulgaria and made our way to the ski resort of Bansko.

I had never skied before and Rach had only spent a weekend in Happy Valley with her family when she was five, so this would be quite an experience. We bought a package deal involving six days of lessons, and started our first on Christmas Eve at 10am on the slopes. We got in to a nice routine during our week:

• wake up and have breakfast til 8:30
• walk to the ski hire depot and take the gondola up the mountain
• lessons from 10 - 12, then an hour for lunch
• afternoon lessons from 1 - 3pm
• back to the hotel for a swim then sauna (for me) and a bath (for Rach)
• relax with a book and/or a drink
• head out for dinner around 6:30 or 7pm

The lessons were tough at first, particularly that first day. On my first turn on skis, I went down the slope arcing to the right and unable to stop myself. The minor problem with my right knee meant I actually couldn't turn left on my skis for most of the first day. I asked the instructor what could be done, and he said there was probably little to be done if it was a knee problem. But I persisted that day and made some small progress - with a lot of effort I could make small turns to the left by the end of the day.

After we finished at 3pm, I thought I would try make the most of the time on the mountain, and went up a little higher on the hill to ski down. Big mistake. I went for 30 seconds slowly down the hill before spectacularly falling over. My shoulder was painful for most of Christmas Eve, and I had trouble lifting my skis in my right hand as we came back down the mountain to our hotel.

It's fair to say that by the end of the first day, in pain and pessimistic about progress, I was regretting our decision to come to Bulgaria, and questioning why we decided to spend a week skiiing. This was going to be a long week. 

While in Bansko, we had dinner on many nights in one of the local mehana (taverns). These are very homely, warm places serving traditional Bulgarian food and wine. We were quite surprised by Bulgarian food - its quite a mix of Turkish, Greek and Central European food. There is a lot of pork, beef, yoghurt, cheese, olives, wine, bread and use of spices. The signature Bulgarian dish we had most often was shopska salad - the Bulgarian version of a Greek salad that's so good we've already made it back in London for dinner. The salad is cucumber, tomato, olive, red onion, roasted peppers, olive, and a grating of white sirene cheese on top.

Our regular lunch was a cheap and tasty (often magherita) pizza and a bottle of beer at a cafe on the slopes. Some other culinary highlights were: 

• honey and spice roasted lamb and flat breads at Buhare Mehana on Christmas Eve
• Rakia, the strong local fruit brandy that usually accompanies shopska salad
• Pork shoulder to share at Dedo Tase
• a gigantic platter of meat (each) still cooking in front of us, at Baryakova Tavern

gigantic, two litre beer for less than two pounds

Back to skiing. Christmas Day (day two) was the big progress day for me. We'd called home on Christmas Eve and opened some presents on Christmas morning. Then we headed up the slopes for our 10am start. Our instructor had reminded us to keep leaning forward, which doesn't feel natural when you're sliding down a hill. But I kept reminding myself to do this, and I could finally start to properly turn left. That day was our first extended skiing session, and it was quite a feeling to be able to ski freely down the (training) slope for a minute or two without stopping.  

We kept building from there, and on  the afternoon of day three we left the training slopes and set out (slowly) on the ski road which was 7km of gentle skiing down to the town of Bansko. Day four was the ski road three times, where we began to learn parallel turns, and we built up quite a bit of speed on the final run down to the town. 

We were being instructed in a group of around 8-10. We got on well with most in the group - amazingly, all of the British people we met or heard were from the north, not a single southerner/Londoner was heard. There was a couple who were hard work: the husband was cocky and overconfident in his skiing abilities, so it was satisfying when he fell over; and the wife was dangerously unskilled on the slopes. It  was a relief when they drifted off. not joining us for the last day and a half. 

Day five was our first time on a proper run, blue run 1, four times. The conditions were pretty atrocious, with a strong cold wind, low visibility and sleety rain that became snow higher up. It began to clear up a little in the afternoon thankfully, but those steeper sloes began to take a toll, with our knees and thighs feeling strained and tired. As Rach and I took the ski road down to Bansko on the last two days, we had a mini tradition of stopping off at The Caves for a quick beer each before continuing on to the town.

On our sixth and final day we went further up the mountain to try blue run 10, which was much steeper and busier than the first blue run. As we took the ski road down one final time, we felt like proper skiers. We received our certificates to prove we were at B level of ability, and that was our skiing done - for now. Skiing definitely feels like something we could do every year or two for the rest of our lives.  

Proof we are experts.

Our final day we had a short walking tour of Sofia. The city feels relatively new in most parts with its Soviet-inspired modernist buildings just down the road from sprawling and grand Viennese style structures. My favourites were the Alexander Nevsky Cathedral, and the fourth-century Church of St George. We also had time to get in a tasty burger and a few beers while people- and dog-watching on busy Vitosha Street, before we headed home to London.

Sofia

Alexander Nevsky Cathedral

The Rotunda of St George, a 4th century Roman church