As I said in my We’re Home post, we had high expectations for Bansko and they were exceeded. That remained true throughout the remainder of our one-month stay. In many ways, our last two weeks were a lot like our first two weeks, except for our two-night trip to Plovdiv, which I wrote about in my last post. That means that in the last half of our stay, we got even more of our favorite parts.
More hikes and picnics
Usually we get tired of hiking the same trails over and over, but even though there were multiple directions to explore around Bansko, we found ourselves returning again and again to our favorite trail along the creek up to the river. This also had the best picnic spots, which we took advantage of for several more lunches during our stay.
If we were to return to Bansko, I think it would be fun to rent a car for at least a few days to reach some of the farther out hiking spots. But we honestly never got tired of our favorite trail.
More live music
After the 10-day jazz festival at the beginning of our stay, Bansko had live music in the square each Friday and Saturday night. I mentioned the Eurovision-style act we saw the first weekend in my prior post. The next weekend featured a band that sounded like Christian rock on Friday night and more of a pop rock band on Saturday, which definitely drew a larger crowd. Our final weekend was opera. We checked out a bit of the performance of Rigoletto on Friday night but since we’d just seen an opera in Plovdiv, we only stayed for a few songs and skipped the Saturday night concert. Still, it was wonderful to continue to have so many cultural entertainment events in the town.
More Bulgarian food
We focused most of our remaining nights out on the various cute traditional Bulgarian restaurants in the Old Town. We had an early dinner in a small restaurant called Chalet Yanitza of vitamin salad (beets, carrots, and apples) with stuffed peppers and vegetarian curry. The proprietor (Yanitza?) seemed to do it all himself but was very friendly.
Our dinner in the charming courtyard of Baryakova Tavern included a performance by a traditional quartet. We enjoyed them so much we made sure to tip them well as they left. We saw them hanging around the restaurant as we were leaving so we suspected they are a house band. It was a little unclear whether the musicians travel from restaurant to restaurant or are employed by a particular one. The meal itself was tasty and interesting with shopska salad and mezzes: chicken, mushroom, pancake in a cheese sauce and a sort of egg and vegetable casserole cooked in a tile.
At Kasapinova restaurant, we got dolmus, traditional bread, roast veggies, and a locally-made sausage. I think it was very authentic, but not our favorite food.
I think I’ll miss RestoBar Skabrin the most out of anywhere in Bansko. We ended up eating there four times – twice in the first half of our stay and twice in the second. For our third and fourth visits, we got the same scrambled eggs with trout and bean and sausage soup with delicious Jägerhof beer as we had on our second. But on our third visit we added tarator soup, a traditional Bulgarian cold soup with yogurt, cucumber, apples, and radishes. On our fourth visit, we added a beet toast, which was very yummy (and pretty!).
Oh, and Chad discovered an authentic gelateria called Le Golosie that we made a couple of visits to. It made him very excited for our upcoming time in Italy.
More museums
We got so much culture and activity from the jazz festival that we didn’t really visit any museums in Bansko during the first half of our stay. But there are several museums in Bansko and we ultimately visited three, as well as taking a peek at the beautiful Holy Trinity Church, which I didn’t photograph because there was a service in progress. Each museum cost just 5 lev per person ($3)
Our first museum was the Bansko Permanent Icon Exhibition, housed in the oldest preserved building in Bansko, built in 1749. The museum is an exposition of the “Bansko School,” a style of religious art in the late 18th century that became very prevalent in Orthodox churches at the time. Seeing the style and various religious scenes was very interesting. There was a two-sided information sheet in English that gave a lot of context.
On our final weekend, we made it to two museums. The House Museum of Nikola Vaptsarov celebrates and shares the life of the poet who the main square in Bansko is named for. He was arrested and executed during World War 2 for his anti-Axis (pro-Communist) resistance. The museum was pretty basic and about half was the preservation of his childhood house, which was similar to exhibits we’d just seen in the ethnographic museum in Plovdiv. It took us less than 20 minutes to go through the whole museum, even with reading through the full info sheet.
That gave us time to visit the “Velyan house” Museum, which was very cool. It was also in a preserved 18th century building and had beautiful walls inside and out from when it was the home of a painter and features for evading Ottoman raiders, including a hideout and tunnel to the church. The underground parts aren’t safe for visitors but we were able to see the tunnel entry. It felt like it provided a really good picture of life in 18th century Bansko.
More lovely vistas
Of course the town itself remained charming throughout our stay and we continued to enjoy the views from our apartment and spending time on our balcony. Here are a few more random photos from our time in Bansko.
Summary
We left Bansko feeling very satisfied with our one-month stay. The weather was perfect, we hiked a ton (4.35 miles per day was the average), and we enjoyed a high quality of life on a pretty tight budget. For our full month in Bankso, not including the transportation to get there or our trip to Plovdiv, we only spent about $2,000. It was really an ideal August location.
With so many other places in the world to see, Bansko is probably not a place we’ll return to very soon. But we’ll remember it fondly and are so glad we finally got to spend an August there.
Bansko Airbnb Review – We had a wonderful one-month stay in Bojan’s apartment. Bojan’s communication was excellent from the time we made the reservation to check-in and throughout our stay, departure, and beyond. He was very upfront about the extra charge for water/electricity and the mandatory tourist tax. His estimate of those costs was spot-on. The best part of the apartment is the view of the mountains from the balcony. I had breakfast out there every morning. The whole apartment is very comfortable and well-equipped for families and light cooking. The wifi worked great once we got on the right network. Our first few days in August were a little warm but overall we were perfectly comfortable with a breeze through the windows. The location is convenient to many small food shops and restaurants, but it is an easy walk along the charming ul. “Gotse Delchev” to get to the old town. The apartment is also very close to the ski slope, which was a gateway to great hiking. We’re so glad we chose this apartment for our Bankso stay and would definitely stay here again.