Our last skiing trip was 5 years ago. When Ricardo and Xana invited us, we thought it was about time for a bit of Winter sport.
They were thinking affordable so the Alps were not to be. Bulgaria came up with good reputation and they settled on Borovets.
Borovets is the oldest Bulgarian Winter resort dating back to 1896. It's situated at 1300m altitude, along the northern slopes of the Rila Mountains, the highest mountain range in Bulgaria and indeed the Balkans. Musala is the highest mountain in the range at 2925m altitude.
Flights to Sofia from London Gatwick take 3h. Transfer from Sofia to Borovets takes 1.5h by coach. We arrived Saturday afternoon.
We booked our package through Balkan Holidays. There was a welcome meeting on the afternoon of the arrival where the rep told us about the resort, a few helpful tips and obviously advertised a few more services (no compromise, we were not pushed).
There was also time to sort out the equipment ready for the first day of skiing. I asked for short skis to go faster. The shop assistant looked at me and said 'these are your size and fast enough'. Bossy Bulgarian!
The mountain range is beautiful but there is a clear lack of snow this year.
The resort itself has all the necessary amenities, including night entertainment, but lacks the picturesque of the Alps resorts.
Half of the restaurants have a man outside trying to lure you in but they are respectful and understand a 'No, thank you'.
Borovets was built for tourism and makes no apologies for being purely functional.
The exception being the 4-stars Hotel Rila. The building was beautifully designed, at the doorstep of the runs, bang in the middle of town, providing ski-in/ski-out and views to the Rila mountain range. Of course it was not to be on our budget!
We stayed at the 4-stars Lion Hotel, 1.5km away from the centre. The hotel is comfortable, very clean, it's situated in a quiet location and has friendly staff. The rooms are hot at night so we slept with open windows which seemed to deliver the ideal sleeping temperature. We have booked half-board and were happily surprised with the variety and quality of the food.
It takes 20min to walk to the centre but there is also a shuttle bus provided by the hotel between 8h20-18h.
We did find a pretty fountain on the way to our hotel which has the particularity of the water freezing and de-frosting according to the weather. The fountains can't be seen at all, only the water jets.
The resort has perfectly functional equipment (drag lifts, chairlifts) manned by plenty of staff. Scattered on the slopes you can see 'Ski Patrol' staff, ready for any emergency. It gave us confidence on the safety levels of the resort.
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