I had a wonderful weekend away with my friend A. On Friday we left school and by 6pm or so we were in Velingrad.

It's not a very long drive but the rental car arrived a little late, we took our time leaving school and unlike lots of other cars on the road we weren't in the business speeding.

The road from Sofia to Velingrad is generally very good. I'd say from the Bulgarian town (village?) Varvara the road becomes narrower and twists  along a river for a bit until one gets to Velingrad.

<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/29050866@N06/8461605605/" title="Velina Hotel in Velingrad by karolinka.sofia, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8528/8461605605_3373bc6554_z.jpg" width="640" height="480" alt="Velina Hotel in Velingrad"></a>
We arrived in Velingrad in the dark with a pretty questionable map from the hotel website and even worse google map directions as somehow the hotel is marked in two different places in Velingrad on google maps. But we're ever hopeful and A. and I made it through Romania last spring break with a map and basic directions, so we weren't too worried.

We found the hotel pretty quickly after an initial wrong turn.

<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/29050866@N06/8461607607/" title="Velina Hotel in the sunlight by karolinka.sofia, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8229/8461607607_6eb15f3afb_z.jpg" width="640" height="480" alt="Velina Hotel in the sunlight"></a><a href="http://www.velinahotel.com/index_en.html" target="_blank">Velina Hotel</a> was wonderful (just as a quick note, the pictures on the website are true to life). It's a large hotel located on the south end of town.

We knew that we wanted to go to Velingrad for a spa weekend but we didn't know which hotel we wanted to go to. We searched around online for a number of different options and found the Velina Hotel this way and we were really happy with it. We reserved the basic room and while it was small, it was clean and the beds were super comfortable. Oh and the pillows were great.
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/29050866@N06/8461611111/" title="Wine at Velina Hotel by karolinka.sofia, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8384/8461611111_b85138736e_z.jpg" width="640" height="480" alt="Wine at Velina Hotel"></a>
We had dinner on Friday night in the hotel and Saturday morning we got up, had breakfast and started a day of spa-ing. The spa-ing was exactly what I needed after a kind of nuts-o January.

Now the thing about the Velina Hotel is that everyone who worked there was super nice and very helpful but no one really spoke English. This is okay because I apparently speak enough Bulgarian to do things like: check in, order meals, ask where the spa center is, get rolls of toilet paper, book massages and other spa treatments, make a table reservation in the hotel restaurant, ask for an later check-out time, and then finally to check out.

Ha, I knew I was learning Bulgarian for a reason. I didn't really think this was it--but that's another story.

Anyhow the women working in the Spa Center really didn't speak English--or at least the ones I interacted with--but that was just fine. It didn't prevent A. and I from both getting a special bath-massage treatment followed by an hour long full body massage. The whole thing was magical.

<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/29050866@N06/8462711542/" title="Restaurant in Velina Hotel by karolinka.sofia, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8250/8462711542_8f8643c485_z.jpg" width="640" height="480" alt="Restaurant in Velina Hotel"></a>After the spa services, we ate a late lunch and then spent the rest of our afternoon alternating between baking ourselves in the sauna and the steam room followed by dips in the cold pool. We also took a swim in the regular pool and we topped the whole thing off with the hot tub. The pool, sauna and steam rooms were all clean an well maintained making for a great afternoon.

Sunday was equally wonderful--maybe even better. Sunday morning we repeated our sauna-steam room routine. What was even better this time was the fact that there were many fewer people in the steam room, the sauna and the pool. Oh and we went out to take a lap in the outdoor pool. This was super. You get to swim in a not to hot mineral pool where the steam is rising off the surface of the water.

When we left at 1pm, I was sad to go. We had such a relaxing weekend.