Bulgaria Week 3 – Eat, Quiz, Ski
Week 3 started off on a bad foot – with a raging hangover! Aaron largely managed to escape it, just feeling a bit tired after just four hours sleep but I felt terrible. In my drunken state the night before, and after around 20 hours of wear, I’d torn my contact lenses out of my eye and woke to a very painful and irritated eye! First stop – the pharmacy!
Luckily, the day got better after that as the second stop was the Station for a gyros. The rest of that day was spent curled up in front of the TV watching Emily in Paris on Netflix, and making a veggie chilli (to try and get some goodness back into our bodies).
Sunday was a much better day and we woke up feeling refreshed! The highlight of the day was definitely the evening though, when after a few pints at Morris Bar with the football on, we ate at an Armenian restaurant called Egur Egur. We’d already checked out the menu online and it looked promising so we arrived with high hopes!
It was even better than expected, largely due to the four-legged company, but the food was incredible. The waitress didn’t speak much English, and our Bulgarian is non-existent so we were manically flipping through the English menu, trying to match it up with what we wanted on the Bulgarian menu, which was made a little difficult when the pages were all out of order and didn’t seem to match.
Luckily, Google Translate came to our rescue and helped us order two starters, and two mains. We went for vine leaves and a random Bulgarian dish to start, and Aaron ordered a leg of lamb with rice and for me, beef cheeks and mashed potatoes (my favourite).
In the confusion with the menus, we’d accidentally ordered two different types of vine leaves, and didn’t get to sample the Bulgarian surprise (which gives us an excuse to go back!) but we weren’t complaining as the vine leaves, one cold and one hot, were absolutely delicious. One was slightly sweeter, with cinnamon and raisons, whilst the other more savoury.
At this point, taking the starters as a great sign of things to come, we were very excited to get our mains, and again, the food was incredible. The meat was cooked to perfection and just fell apart in your mouth.
This was one of the fancier restaurants in Bansko, yet the 2 course meal and 2 beers each only cost £40 for the two of us!
Monday was a designated ski day for us and we were really excited because it was meant to have snowed! It had rained all weekend, which often means snow in the mountains and so I was really excited to go skiing in Bansko! As we got on the gondola and headed up the mountains, the rain quickly turned to snow and we realised we were in for a treat!
As we arrived at the gondola station at the top, the snow was super powdery and thick. After Friday’s ski debacle, I wanted to give Chalin Valog (a blue run) a go, as it has a steeper incline than on the ski road. After I did that with ease, and feeling brave again, I decided to give Kolarski a go again (where I’d had a meltdown, just 3 days before). The conditions were good, and I felt like I could do it today.
Not only did I complete Kolarski, but I went back up and did it three times in total! I think the snow really helped. Friday was so icy you could barely get a grip on your skis and it felt really slippery, which led to me feeling a little bit out of control on my skis. With the new layer of snow, and the feeling of friction and resistance under the skis, I was able to do my turns confidently and control the speed properly. I got so confident by the end that I picked up way too much speed and faceplanted the snow, but it was all good because I WAS DOING IT!!
The evening took us to a new restaurant, a mehana (Bulgarian tavern) called the Hadji Georg for a pub quiz. It was no ordinary pub quiz though, it was one organised by Bansko Street Dogs with our entry fees and 10% of the food and drink going towards helping the dogs. So, naturally I was all in!
We were invited by Sam, who we’d met on Friday night to join their team and met lots of lovely people. We also saw a few of the AltSpace (our coworking space) crew there too!
I think Aaron and I made a fine contribution to the team, with Aaron dominating sport and me the random information which is helpful to nobody…apart from the dogs questions. We ended up coming 5th, but with only a few points separating us from first place!
After our day of fun on the Monday, Tuesday was spent in AltSpace working. For lunch, we went to Sapid Café where unfortunately they didn’t have a menu to hand. Rather than give us the Bulgarian menu to descipher ourselves, the waitress, impressively, recited the entire menu in English for us. I only recognised “cheeseburger” so that is what we went for. It was a lovely burger too, and that (with fries and a coke) came to only £5 each. Bargain.
On Wednesday, we had our ski boots on again! We headed up to the Kolarski blue run again to make sure I hadn’t forgotten how to ski, that and you have to go down there to get anywhere else! It was a bit hairy because despite there being so much snow on the ground, they’d put the snow cannons on.
In normal conditions, it would probably have been fine, but it was a particularly cold day (around -9) so the snow was settling on top of the snow and freezing immediately. As you skied through the snow, it was freezing on your goggles too, so you were frantically rubbing them, trying to get rid of the ice so you could see again!
We decided to go up even higher today, in the hope that the cannons wouldn’t be turned on the higher you went up the mountain. We went up a lift called Shiligarnik, which took you to the second highest point in the mountains. The view from up there is spectacular, and because it was clear and sunny, you could see the entire town.
Whilst the run was steeper than anything I’d skied down previously, it was a very wide run so I didn’t feel I was in the way of anyone, or that anyone was going to crash into me so I was able to take my time which really makes a difference. That is what makes Kolarski a difficult run, because everyone is on it – the people are by far the most scary bit of skiing!
I made it all the way down, with few problems and I could hardly believe it! To celebrate my best day skiing in Bansko so far, we sat in the snow to give our legs a rest and ate our very cold homemade sandwiches whilst doing some people watching in the sun!
Feeling rejuvenated, I had one more run left in me before heading back on the ski road back to town, and by time we made to the end of the ski road, my legs were shaking. Learning to parallel is high on my to-do list because my legs can’t take all this snow ploughing!
Just before the edge of the end of the ski road, there is a little bar called the Ethno Restaurant. You can’t miss it because it has a huge snow plough jutting out of the roof! We had a quick beer in the sun, before heading to Happy End (and their heaters!) for a mulled wine – perfection!
Thursday was an exciting day because it was the end of covid isolation for Laura and Alexi (hooray!!). First, Aaron headed out to the slopes whilst I went to AltSpace and we met for lunch for another Gyros…we really need to get this addiction under control.
With dinner booked at 8pm, we decided to go to Pirin 75 for a quick drink before. Pirin 75 is a small but cute bar, which Aaron said felt much more like a bar in the Alps. I will take his word for it. It was quite dark and had the feel of an underground wine bar – and the wine was excellent too!
Just as we were leaving, we ran into Kevin, a guy who works in Tsakiris, our ski rental place so we got chatting to him about all things ski and ended up being 20 minutes late for dinner!
We arrived at Castello where Laura and Alexi were just being served their drinks, and apologised for the delay before joining them in ordering a glass of red. From the outside, the restaurant was pretty impressive, and the food was excellent. Although, for a Greek restaurant, the food wasn’t overly Greek (filo pastry and feta aside!), and more Italian with a lot of pasta dishes on the menu!
Friday was one of the best days we’ve had so far skiing in Bansko, as it was our first-time skiing as a four! Aaron and I started with a couple of practice runs down the blue runs, whilst Laura & Alexi had a practice on the button lift by the Gondola, given Laura hadn’t been able to ski for 2 weeks. Luckily, she hadn’t forgotten to ski and whilst we were up in the mountains, we had a text to say they were going to try the chair lift and the blue run!
We met them at 180 bar and despite it being just 11am, we found ourselves enjoying some beers for a bit of Dutch courage! Turns out beer and skiing are the perfect match, and Laura and I felt that we were pros from that moment on. After the beers, we got the munchies, so decided it would be a good time to stop for lunch and tucked into a margherita pizza each.
Laura decided that she was happy to head further up the mountain, so we found ourselves all on the chairlift up the mountain for the first time! We all came down with no problems and did a few runs all together before tackling the ski road, which actually was the hardest bit because it was so icy!
Once we were back in town, we dropped our skis and boots off and went into Happy End, which seems to be the place to be for Après. Banging tunes, good beers, and outdoor heaters. We stayed there for a couple of hours before heading to Amigos – which unlike last week – was completely dead. I think we were just far too early this time around. After a few beers, and a full day skiing, we were all completely dead so we called it a night before too many beers were consumed, and hangovers were guaranteed for the next day!
We are hopeful that there will be a lot of snowfall next week, at least the weather forecast is looking promising, so we should have a few great ski days in store! It’s also Alexi’s birthday celebrations at the weekend so we’ve got that to look forward to!
Catch up next week,
Meg xx
