A little place on the piste

The Telegraph, *with excerpts, 01st March 2006

A ski home for as little as £30,000? Nicola Venning finds bargains in Bulgaria

Skiing down fresh powdery slopes in the morning, a soothing soak in hot thermal baths under snowcapped mountains in the afternoon, and all within reach of your own ski apartment - it sounds as if it should cost the Earth. But it needn't. In fact, inexpensive mountain homes are becoming increasingly available as Europe becomes more accessible and property ownership rules relax.

For a real ski home bargain, it would be hard to beat Bulgaria.

Bansko, an intermediate-level ski resort in the south-west Pirin mountains has recently spent 130 million GBP on improving its 65km of pistes (which reach up to 2,560m) including a new cable car, seven chair lifts and six drag lifts.

Needless to say this has attracted an abundance of new developments, most of which are due to be completed during the next three years.

As yet there are no low cost airlines that fly to the area, however there are charter flights to Sofia, which is two hours from the resorts, as well as scheduled flights with Bulgarian Air (bulgaria-air.co.uk), Wizz Air (wizzair.com, with a connecting flight from Budapest) and British Airways.

Bulgaria does not have a track record in maintaining a ski resort to Western standards though recent improvements suggest it won't take long for the country to catch up.

But then, where else in Europe can you buy an alpine home for the price of a car?

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