Vakanova Inn

The Vakanova Inn was built some 250 years ago by Hadji Vakanov brothers in Revival-style and it is one of the most beautiful houses having a rich fresco decoration outside and fine woodcarvings.
The house is dating back to the Renaissance, when Bansko lived its "Golden Age" in the second half of 18th century and the beginning of 19th century when it reached economic and cultural peak. In the middle of 18th century Bansko was a big and rich settlement developing crafts and trade. The caravans of Bansko traders travelled from the Aegean to Middle Europe transporting tobacco, cotton, precious goods, gold.

Vakanova Inn was completely restored in 1985.
The environment is clean, guaranteed by the mountain, rivers and lakes. You will have your dream holiday or weekend, provided by beautiful nature and our hospitality.
The Vakanova house is situated in the center of the town and offers accomodation in rooms designed in traditional old Bulgarian style. Each room has its own bathroom. The cozy atmosphere and low prices (from 5 to 10 Euro) makes "Vakanova Inn" perfect place for your vacation. It has an well equipped kitchen where the guests can cook their dishes themselves.
At this place, with your family or friends, you will find true leisure in nature. Our countryside house provides old traditions, silence, cozy atmosphere, discreetness, low costs. Piglet or lamb in traditional oven, homemade brandy, traditional dishes, barbecue, nice hosts.
Upon your request, you could have traditional dishes. Fresh milk or homemade yogurt, polifloral honey, fresh eggs – those are some of the products of Bansko.
Here you will find places for your hobby – fishing in the high mountain lakes, collecting herbs and mushrooms gathering, visits to monasteries, sightseeing!!!
For those able to tear themselves away, there is excellent hiking in the nearby Pirin: the Bunderitsa and Vihren mountain huts (14 and 17 kms from Bansko, respectively) offer convenient bases for single or multi-day hikes.

The nearby villages of Bania and Dobrinishte have bath houses fed by warm mineral water springs.
The long ski seazon – started from December through the late April makes an area of Bansko a delight for skiers and snowboarders, especially those accomplished enough to avail themselves of the steep off-piste terrain. The initial station of the lift is only 10 min from the Vakanova Inn.
You can enjoy all this activities beeng our guests !

Craft Tours

In Vakanova Inn you can not only enjoy the warmth of the old Bulgarian home. Here you can touch the traditional way of living of Bulgarian people during the last centuries. For those who appreciate the pleasure of hand weaving we give the opportunity for learning and working with genuine ancient loom. We will teach you the traditional methods of work and the typical patterns used in Bulgarian weaving.
The fabrics you have made, beautiful and ecologicaly clean, you may take home as warm memory of the time spent in our town.

Home weaving were developing in Bulgaria eversince the Middle Ages. The folk notion of adroit and industrious girl is connected with her skill "to spin thin and to weave dense". After a hard day at the farm, women used to sit at the loom lighted only by the fireplace or the paraffin lamp. The quality and quantity of their weaving gave them the reputation of good and industrious housewives. The fabrics that came out of their hands, beautiful and colourful, were a pleasure to look at the brought freshness and comfort to house. The weavers mingled in their textiles the practical requirements of the material life with the aesthetic notions of the family and village community for beauty.

The larger textiles are used for bedding and to cover floors and seats. The most universal application goes to the rug which is widespread throughout the country. The ancient prototype was the white or two-colour rug in the natural shades of the wool. Later it became a beautiful and picturesque item with perfectly combined colours. For these gaily coloured rugs the common people used to say: "As bright as if ready to sing out". Their decoration consists of groups of multicoloured streaks rythmically arranged in strict symmetry as regards to width and colour. When the colour streaks form independent motifs, the rug is called kilimena (of the carpet type)
Tufted textiles (Kitenitsi) were used in the Bulgarian home for bedding and then for seat coverings. They are woven out of yarn or tufts of wool, unicoloured, of striped design or a combination of field and warp in contrasting colours. Most of the tufted textiles were prodused in the Rhodopes Mountains, in the towns of Sliven, Yambol and Kotel.