*** If you’re looking for Bansko Christmas and New Years Eve recommendations, read my blog post The Best Bansko Christmas and New Year Hotspots for my recommendations for 2022/2023! This is just my travel diary from last year!***
We’ve arrived in Bansko! The journey getting here was epic and involved 3 trains, 1 tube through London, 2 buses, a bit of overnight camping at the airport and finally the three-hour plane journey to Bansko.
We are meant to arrive on the 5th of January, but for so many reasons (mostly COVID related) we decided to bring forward our flights and ended up flying on Christmas Eve. Our trip home to the UK over the Christmas period definitely highlighted the downsides to not having a fixed home and that being a digital nomad isn’t always fun and games!
After a long journey (despite the flight only being 3 hours!) we arrived in Bansko at around midday and whilst we were super tired, having only had around three hours of broken sleep, were really excited to get up and go and see what the town had in store for us.
We had a quick shower (absolute heaven for me, but the hot water ran out whilst Aaron was in the shower which he was happy about!) and took a walk up into the centre where we found the gondola and paid for our ski lift passes (£650…ouch!).
I’ve never been to a ski resort before so really have nothing to compare to, but Aaron said that this is very different to those in other countries. Bansko is very much like a town rather than a resort, and there are locals going about their daily business there; it’s not just tourists.
There were so many bars and restaurants in the centre of town so we had a quick walk around, but at this point was so hungry that we dashed into a restaurant called Ginger where we gobbled down a whole pizza each. We figured that we had plenty of time to have a proper look around the restaurants but we’d better eat before we got ratty – by this time it was around 3pm and we hadn’t eaten since 4am that morning!
We were both super tired, but it was Christmas Eve so not going out was out of the question and we made plans to meet our friends Laura and Alexi at a Pub and restaurant called Smokey Mountain later on in the evening.
Having eaten a whole pizza each, at this point we’re both in a food coma and decided it would be a good idea to have a 20 minute power nap. This turned into a two hour nap (oops) and we wake up feeling suitably groggy but went out anyway – there’s nothing like some fresh mountain air to wake you up!
It was the first time that we’d seen Laura for around three years and we both never met Alexi before so we were excited to meet him. We had a great night catching up, hearing all about their travels, drinking beer and there was a guy playing some acoustic tunes, which made for a good atmosphere with the fire crackling in the background. After around 5 pints and a couple of shots which were on the house (in return for the boys helping to move a pool table!) we called it a night; delirious from lack of sleep at that point and keen to make the most of Christmas Day.
The paths in Bansko are still very icy from some snowfall that they had last week, and I almost made it all the way home without slipping or falling over! Almost. Just a few steps away from the gate to our flat, I took an epic fall just steps away from the front door, almost bringing Aaron down with me, and twisted my knee! I honestly can’t believe it. I’d not even been skiing in Bansko yet and already picked up an injury!
We woke up the following day at 11:00 AM, treating ourselves to a lie in, cracked open the panettone and made ourselves a couple of coffees in keeping with our UK traditions on Christmas morning.
We opened our Christmas cards and put them on the table and on the mantlepiece to make the flat feel Christmassy and opened our Christmas gifts. Given our limited luggage weight you won’t be surprised to hear that we didn’t have very many to open so it didn’t take too long, but I had some lovely gifts from Aaron and my family, and my sister bought me the warmest, most cuddliest pair of pyjamas that I’m sure will not be off my back for the next three months!
Once we finished our coffees and sent some Christmas text messages to our friends and family in the UK, we headed out towards the gondola. We weren’t going skiing in Bansko today but decided to go and checkout what it all looks like up there and to maybe have a quick Christmas drink on the slopes. We went in an ‘Umbrella Bar’ basically a little bar under a covered gazebo and had a tasty hot wine whilst watching people skiing and snowboarding around us, all wrapped up in our coats and hats! I think it was the first time I’d ever seen snow on Christmas!
By time we’d finished our drinks it was time to head back down the mountain on the gondola and meet Laura & Alexi for Christmas lunch. We had no idea what to expect food-wise, but Laura had booked a table at a restaurant called Victoria, which is meant to be one of the best restaurants in Bansko.
Whilst a traditional British Christmas dinner with turkey and all the trimmings was not on the menu, plenty of other things were! The menu spanned across 20 pages, and we were totally spoilt for choice! We chose a few starters which included croquettes, cheese and more cheese which we shared between the four of us and then for the main event, I had a baked salmon tagliatelle and Aaron had a steak pasta dish. This was washed down with a carafe of red wine and polished off with a chocolate souffle with raspberries and pistachios.
Like I said, not very traditional and we were SO grateful to have had an early Christmas dinner with all the trimmings with Aaron’s dad and step mum, Judy, so we didn’t feel like we’d missed out on some festive grub. I’m sure it wouldn’t have been as good either!
We said goodbye to the guys at the restaurant and took a walk (well a hobble for me!) back through Old Town towards our flat, until we finally reached what appeared to be the main square with a huge sparkling Christmas tree right in the middle of it.
With the snow all around it, felt really festive and that was when we heard the drums!
We had heard these from our flat during the morning when we were getting ready to go out but by time we’d got dressed, put our boots and coats on and got out to the main road we’d missed whatever it was, so we were pleased that we might get to see what it was!
We could hear it getting closer and closer, so walked towards where the music was coming from and all of a sudden around the corner came a traditional Bulgarian Christmas band! Some had drums, some had rattles and some had bells wrapped around their waists, jumping up and down making what would probably be considered a complete racket had it not been Christmas Day! It was lovely to see what was traditional to Bulgaria on Christmas Day and one of the drummers came right up to us and gave us a solo performance! We finished the day snuggled on the sofa watching an absolute classic, Love Actually (how else do you finish Christmas Day?!).
We woke on Boxing Day feeling productive, so we headed towards town to get our ski boots fitted which was seamless and took little to no time.
Luckily, because we were the first people to rent ski equipment from them they gave us storage for free which saves us having to carry all our equipment two on from the flat every time we ski.
Boxing Day in UK is largely (at least for us!) about eating food and watching sports – there is so much football on Boxing Day! We saw this as a perfect opportunity to go and explore the pubs!
A bartender that we met in Smokey Mountain on Christmas Eve, Dennis, told us that Queens pub and Amigos Pub were good for football so we headed to Queens pub first. You enter through telephone boxes and the pub itself is massive. There are so many tables, pool tables, darts boards and lots of big screens showing multiple games – we thought we’d hit the jackpot!
However, when the football began there was no commentary, just some local Bulgarian music being played in the background. When we asked whether they were going to put the commentary on they said the manager wasn’t around so they couldn’t at the moment.
We finished our beers and headed to Amigos pub to see whether the atmosphere was any better there for the second half of the football, but the same thing happened again! The football was on the screens but no sound! We asked barman whether he would put the sound on and he said that the reason it wasn’t on was because the stream that they were playing didn’t have any English commentary, so we’d have to make do with just picture. I don’t care what you say, you just can’t enjoy a football match with Abba’s Dancing Queen blaring in the background.
Having had such a great local sports bar in Cyprus, we were a little bit disappointed about these bars because the atmosphere just wasn’t the same but will try again on a normal weekend to say it is in a different. Focusing on what was good about it though was the beer was cheap and the food was pretty decent too – proper pub grub!
For me the 27th was a catch up on workday, as I had very little time to do any last week due to the last-minute change of plans and trip across the country to catch our flight but for Aaron, the 27th marked his first day skiing in Bansko! He went with Alexi and came back with the biggest grin on his face, like he had the best time ever.
For lunch, we went to a self-serve restaurant called Baba Vuna (Grandmother Vuna!). It was basic, a bit like a canteen where you go to the counter and pick from the dishes (around 10 to choose from) they have available that day. I went for stuffed leaves (rice wrapped in cabbage leaves) and Aaron had a chicken leg and rice. It was basic but tasty, and the portions were huge. A good place to come after a day of skiing when you need to refuel, and the prices were unbelievable. We had lunch for 2 for the equivalent of £3 each which included a full plate of food and a coke each. We’ll definitely be coming back here!
Unfortunately, we’d been having WiFi issues in our apartment, and when I say issues, I mean it completely wasn’t working. With that in mind, we decided to scope out some cafes we might be able to work in.
Bansko is a popular place for remote workers and there are designated co-working spaces/remote offices for people to go and work where you’ll be given a desk to work at and the WiFi is fast and reliable. Sometimes other things, like tea and coffee, or quiet rooms are included too. I might at some point give these a go to try them out, but they’re quite expensive at £100 -£130 per month. I’m going to see what the WiFi is like in our permanent apartment, when we move on 2 January and make a decision based on the quality of the WiFi there.
In the meantime, Laura had found a Bansko blog which suggested some cafes that welcome remote workers so we took a walk to find them. The first stop was Sapid Café and all looked promising from the outside. There is almost a conservatory bit at the front which is light and bright with tables in but it also appeared to be the smoking area so we heading indoors to find a table, but it looked like a function was being held there as all the tables were reserved. We marked it down as a good one to try in future though as there were lots of table and comfortable chairs.
Second on the list was Coconut Café and Smoothie bar which turned out to be a takeaway hatch so, no working to be done there! The last café on the tour was Caffe Club and it looked like we were onto a winner on the approach, free seats, music on but despite the sign clearly saying open it was clearly in fact, closed. Nevermind. Onwards! We had one more café on our list, Le Petit Nicolas, but as we headed down the main street, we decided to pop into MyBar. Whilst this wasn’t an ideal café to work from as the seats and tables weren’t really designed with that in mind, we were able to sit and do a little blog planning so we were happy with that!
With the planning done, it was time for some fun! We were going to the hot springs with Laura and Alexi! The price reduces after 4pm, just as it is getting dark, but when we arrived, we found the manager in a right old state. He insisted that we have a look at how busy it was before committing to going in. Whilst it was busy, it wasn’t too bad and we decided to go for it, much to the managers displeasure – which he didn’t try to hide.
The hot springs were made of 4 separate pools of different temperature, with the hottest at 39 degrees (and WOW it was hot!) and the coldest at 13 degrees, which to me was unbearably cold and I only managed to put one leg in. Alexi on the other hand was in his element and swam around like a salmon, revisiting the cold water at regular intervals! Both Aaron and Laura managed to get in the cold pool, Aaron looking very unimpressed and Laura as a medical necessity, as she’d gotten to the point of severe overheating in the jacuzzi pool! There wasn’t much to do but relax, talk and the best part…drink beer(!) and before we knew it, we’d been there for 3 hours! It was a really relaxing experience and a great way to spend the evening.
The following day, it was time for me to put on my skis! My first thoughts on skiing are:
- Wearing ski clothes in town is HOT! By time we’d walked the 15 minutes from the flat to Tsakaris (the ski rental place), I was already sweating profusely in my 100 layers.
- Ski Boots are difficult to walk in aren’t they?
- How the hell do you walk in these boots, hold the skis AND the poles?
By time we’d got on the gondola, I was one relieved, hot mess! But the weather was amazing, because it was snowing in the mountains! It was quite magical actually, to see proper snow!
Aaron and I decided it would be a good idea for me to get a feel for skiing in Bansko before I had my lessons, learn how to put my boots on, practice getting on and off the gondola, get used to how the snow feels under the skis and just get a feel for everything to try and quell some of the nerves.
We found a spot at the back of one of the bars where I could put my ski boots on, which was at the bottom of a very shallow hill (in fact it was so shallow, it was almost flat!). Here, I took my boots on and off, with Aaron stressing that the bottom boot (as in the one lower down the mountain) always goes on first so you can stabilise yourself, and not go flying down the mountain having not even got your skis on yet.
Once the boots were firmly on (no problems there!), we practiced moving on the snow, side stepping up the snow to get to the top of the hill. Once there, I slid down and got used to the feeling – it was far less scary than I thought and not as slippery than I thought it would be (yay!).
Once these things were mastered, we started on the baby slopes, practicing my snow plough or wedge (where you get your skis into a triangle shape to reduce speed and stop) and getting on and off the button lifts AND I DIDN’T FALL ON THEM! It was really good fun.
After a quick drinks break, I was feeling full of confidence and felt that I had outgrown the baby slopes already. In hindsight, I was definitely a little overconfident. As we were heading to the button lift to the larger, more steep beginners slope, we had intended to only go halfway up, but no, I decided that we should just go to the top “because it wasn’t that much higher”. Oh, Meg. After picking up quite a lot of speed, and then swiftly forgetting all of my training on the lower slopes, I flew down the slope, ski-less and on my belly. Luckily I found the whole thing very funny, and it certainly brought me down a peg or 2.
It was such a good first experience, in spite of the epic fall and I can’t wait to give it another go in a couple of days (once my sore muscles have rested!).
Unfortunately, I came down with a stomach bug which wrote off the following day completely, and much of New Years Eve. Unfortunately, Laura and Alexi also tested positive for Covid too, so they were also isolating, which made for a quiet New Years Eve!
When NYE came around, I was still feeling pretty sketchy, but we went out for a walk into town to see what everyone was up to and to get some fresh air! All the bars and restaurants were full and there were so many people around! We sat in a little bar called Station where Aaron had a couple of beers and I enjoyed a cold Coke!
Then we watched the fireworks from our flat at midnight. The fireworks here were NUTS. Aaron said he felt like he was in the middle of a war zone! Everywhere you looked they were going off!
It was probably the quietest New Year’s Eve we’d had in a while (not in terms of sound though – with all that was going on outside!), and it was the first New Years Eve for years that I’d gone to bed without having had a single drink! Despite it not being the New Years Eve that we planned, I am super grateful that we’ve made it to Bansko (which was looking uncertain in the UK before we left) and I’m super excited to start 2022 in a new place, to learn to ski and do it all with my favourite person!
Happy New Year everyone!
Love, Meg
xxx
