Bulgaria Ski discussion board

Ok for all of you who want an update here goes.
The sofia road - going from the airport out of Sofia is still in big works and I'd say as a non builder that really it looks 12 months off finishing. Once out of sofia and you turn onto the E79?? then the road is very good. We drove through Sofia on the way back and stopped for a beer & food and its really good.

Anyway back to bansko - Lets start with the Pirin Golf Country Club we had the full tour and then had lunch & beers in the Golf club house. Well I can tell you that the club house is stunning truely stunning and the actual greens & driving range very very good. The food in the Club house is a la carte but that said the mains were 20-24 Levs & huge & very very good. The beer was 5.5Lev in the club house. The hotel at the site has only just really started being built and again looks like it will be ready to go Dec09.

Pirin District 3 is 99% finished, Pirin District 1 will be finished 1st week in Jan09, the houses facing the lake & golf course are all finished and looking very good - went inside one too and again highly impressed.
It seems that the furniture packs are going to be E7.5k incl VAT for a Studio and that means the kitchen, a double hob, sink, washing machine, fridge freezer, plates etc, and a single oven & microwave, there will be a std size double bed a wardrobe a 3 seater sofa bed (which will be a proper double bed) and a single seat. The breakfast bar is now not going to happen instead its a dining table & charis instead & outside on the balcony its a table & four seats. The balcony is much bigger than i had anticipated.
Finally your going to get a Plasma and IIRC 42".

There will be 4 tennis courts astro turf pitches and pony trecking. As owners/guests staying in the site you can use the 2 golf courses but on a pay per play basis or you can pay to be an annual member so play as often as you like for free - you clearly need to do the maths to see if this makes financial sense. Non owners are 100% NOT allowed to use the golf course - they will however be allowed on a pay per play basis to use the driving range. They did say sellers of properties outside of the course will tell you different stories to drive demand for their own properties but there is no chance you will be able to get in.

Next the ski runs - there is a determination that Balkanstroy will be opening up new Ski runs (just for Pirin Country club owners/members - they havent sorted out the details yet) 9km West of bansko.

They are intending on having Bulgarian, Greek, Turkish, Italian places to eat on site and many of them + they are going to rent out some so cuisine could be anything.

The town itself - we went to many of the bars and had great time. We left one bar on Sat morning at 6.30am...
For those who have posted up how expensive it is well I can tell you we were buying beers for 1.6 Levs thats £0.64 per pint & those prices were in the Clubs/pricy bars. The cheapest beer pint of was 0.8Lev - cannot recall its location now.

Food cost... well we had gut fulls of food 3 course meals and 3/4 bottles of wine & Raki's & many beer basically costs 30lev incl big tips yes thats a mere £12 where your treuly merry had great food until you need to lie down.

One nightclub we went into next to the communist statue was an odd place - we went in and every seat round the bar had reserved signs on them and also every other seat/table in the place... we popped in at 1am ish and it was at most a third full and we barely found a wall to lean against while we had a beer - note we left after one beer (entry 1.5lev beer was stella only bottled and IIRC 2.5/3lev).

We drove up to the mid station for a look around and the road up there has been resurfaced last time it was shockingly bad this time smooth all the way. Was very cold up there in the mist and couldnt really see much.

Any info chaps post up and I'll reply.
After reading some of the negative posts on here it really does make you wonder what vested interest they have (or just trolls). The lads who came with me loved the place and are up for booking up to go out in the Ski season - you could say I have a vested interest as an owner but they dont & Ive been very frank here.

Once again the Pirin Golf country club is truely stunning - I had expected it to be nice after being shown Katerina Spa but this is on another level it truely is.
I know I cannot wait to stay there winter & summer.

Also we stayed in m place in Lucky Bansko - again top notch service and drinks there & food very well priced & good quality.

Ive a place in Lucky Bansko myself and am very impressed with it.

We really wanted to have a massage but forgot to book! With Hindsight we should have opted for 4 days out there.

We hired a car nothing special a Skoda Octavia it cost us £84 for the car & £25 ish for fuel, we could have opted for an even cheaper carbut as it was 3 tall adults we went bigger & its hardly pricy.

Anyone not been to the Rila Monastry - its worth a visit, mind you not sure why its called the Rila Monastry as its some some way past that village.