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What with the recession and the chattering classes’ compulsive need to have something to chatter about the Alps are going out of fashion somewhat. We’ve all been there, and all done that, and besides we don’t have the money anymore. So what to talk about?
Anyone who knows anything knows that Eastern Europe is the new Europe. And anyone who knows anything about skiing knows that Bulgaria is the ‘in’ place to slide down the slopes. And it’s much cheaper than the more traditional resorts of France and Switzerland.
Since the fall of communism, Bulgaria has become a capitalist paradise, offering cheap property and cheap replicas of Swiss watches for a fraction of the price of their Western counterparts, and they’ve also decked the place out as a top notch skiers paradise. Bansko is the ‘Whistler of Bulgaria’, while Borovet is the aristocrats’ playground turned great-place-to-learn-to-ski-on-the-cheap, where communist state-owned lodges have been returned to their former owners.
Eastern Europe in general has become favoured by student travellers as a cheap place to have a holiday (or ‘find themselves’) with a famously friendly population offering cheap booze to anyone who’ll have it, and this translates well to the vibrant apres ski scene one might be looking for on a group ski holiday. There’s vodka for a pound and you’ll sometimes get two, I have a friend who reportedly spent the entire night drinking for free in Bulgaria, simply because he was English and struck up a one night bonhomie with the barman.
As anyone who has travelled to Eastern Europe will tell you, there is a certain character to the place that you just won’t get anywhere else, a certain post-communist tang in the air, a transition between autocracy and free market libertarianism that offers a unique experience – and something to talk about when you get home.
As far as skiing itself goes, Bansko offers over 56km of well-groomed pisted runs, and cutting edge ski lift equipment installed by the well-regarded ski lift company Doppelmayer. Borovets is famous for its excellent ski school which boasts over 200 instructors who will take you out onto the slopes for the first time, and features some runs as high as 2,500 metres above sea level and Pamporovo is afforded the accolade of southernmost ski resort in Europe.
The Alps are out, we’ve heard all the stories, you’ve told all the stories; you’ve tried all the slopes and been to all the resorts. There’s not enough money in the bank for a French skiing holiday anymore but you sure as hell need to be sliding down some snowy peaks at some point in the season. Bulgaria’s in, and who knows, maybe you’ll like it so much, you’ll end up buying a house.
Related Posts
- An argument for packaged skiing holidays
- The Best of Bulgaria
- Ski like a Sultana
Copyright © 2010 Nick Lewis
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