I knew I'd be going through Bulgaria at some point since I was planning on passing through it to get to Istanbul (it's on the way, in case you don't have a map handy). It seemed like now was going to be the time I did it, and before doing it I had absolutely know idea what the hell I was gonna do or where I was gonna go in this country. To be honest, I think I heard zero good things about Bulgaria. Everybody would ask me why I was going there and they told me that I shouldn't go there, but once again, popular opinion fails in the personal experience realm.
I only knew about one place in Bulgaria: Sofia, the capital city. It wasn't super far from Bucharest so I thought it would be a good idea to go there first. I didn't plan on spending much time in Bulgaria anyways but I figured it would be good to see at least one place while passing through, just to say I did something there. Actually, not long before heading to Bulgaria I did hear about one other place through my friend Zack, who I traveled with briefly during my trips through Croatia and Montenegro. His plan was to go snowboarding in Bulgaria because he heard the mountains are pretty good there and it was super cheap, so this immediately caught my attention. He was there boarding maybe a week or two before I got to Bulgaria so I messaged him about it and he gave me all the details. The name of the place was Bansko, and he recommended to me the only hostel in town, and he also mentioned that it only costed him $60 for the lift ticket AND all the gear; board, boots, jacket, pants, goggles, gloves, everything. This was clearly too good to be true, so of course I had to check it out for myself.
But before doing that I did want to see at least a little bit of Sofia before just skipping up into the mountains with pure joy and excitement. My initial plan was to do two nights in Sofia because I was arriving late at night on the bus from Bucharest, and it would give me a full day to see the whole city before spending just one more night there and heading to Bansko the following day. Then I would go to Bansko, get settled in, and do two nights there, obviously snowboarding during the only full day I planned on being there. Then I would head back to Sofia and take the night bus to Istanbul. Seemed like a pretty good plan, so let's see how it all went down:
Bus ride to Sofia went smoothly, taxi through sketchy part of town from bus station to hostel went smoothly, first night went smoothly. Next day was gonna be the free walking tour in the morning (you know how much I love those) which was great, and I felt pretty accomplished about everything that was covered during that. Had to check out a few more churches of course (at this point, I might as well just start sleeping in them instead of hostels or couchsurfing) and I was pretty much satisfied with what I had seen in Sofia by the afternoon. There's honestly not a whole lot to see in Sofia compared to the other heavy hitters in the Balkans, but to be honest the place has a really good vibe. I don't get this 'good vibe' feeling in every city, but when I do I'll mention it because it's a great feeling to have when you're just walking around aimlessly and being comfortable about it at the same time. I found the people here to be super nice too (as mentioned previously, that's huge). I got my haircut shortly after the tour by some old Bulgarian woman who didn't speak any English, and even though it wasn't the best haircut in the world (or the second best one...) it was still a cool experience, because another customer came in mid-cut who actually spoke some English and asked me a bit about what I was doing in Sofia while translating some of the conversation to the old Bulgarian ladies. They taught me the Bulgarian basics (which was fun and embarrassing, as usual) and we had some laughs. It was a great time, and I like to think that I just paid for the experience rather than the haircut :)
My first mulled wine in Bansko |
Dallan and I grabbed some food and a beer at one of the places when we were eventually joined by the other three guys who had just come down from the mountain and were getting some post-shred beers themselves. I met Dave (an American!), Hayden (yet another Aussie), and Joey (crazy awesome British surfer dude), and we all got along great real quick. All boarders, all here for the purpose of boarding, and just about all ended up staying longer than initially planned (there may be a hint of foreshadowing here). We went over what we were all up to and why we were here and blah blah blah, but the main idea was to just go snowboarding in Bansko. So it was a great introduction to the town the first day, and with the forecast looking awesome the next day we were all pretty excited to get some fresh Bulgarian pow.
Unfortunately, Dave had to take off the next day so it was me, Dallan, Hayden, and Joey (the Powder Rangers) the next day. I honestly got everything I had hoped for out of this trip on the first day. It had been snowing quite a bit the last few days and it finally cleared up on this magical day of epicness. I couldn't believe how great the snow was and how impressively huge these mountains were! The resort itself was top notch, offering all the same lifts, facilities, and snowmaking that some of the best resorts in Tahoe offered (at less than half the price!) so that in itself was something, but these mountains were the real deal and they offered some really good terrain that we had a great time with. It was honestly one of the best days of snowboarding I think I've ever had. Period.
Perfect day of snowboarding! |
The more I write about it the more I miss it, so I think I'm just gonna leave it at that, and after Joey convinced me to go on the mountain the day I was leaving before catching the bus back to Sofia, despite my body being destroyed, I did. And then I rushed back to the hostel, checked out, caught the bus to Sofia, hung out for a bit there, then caught the overnight bus to Istanbul. It was a crazy 24 hours but I survived, and Istanbul would be the next city on the list of what was to come.
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