Lilly and I wanted to spent a few days together to celebrate our fourth wedding anniversary and the (almost) end of her academic year in Budapest.

Instead of making a mad dash for the seaside, we decided to spend four days in Bansko. Our choice was mainly because it is closer and I personally prefer the mountains in summer. We stayed at the wonderful Kempinski Hotel Grand Arena in Bansko (www.kempinski-bansko.com). Even though there was some minor repair work going on, we could not have made a better decision. The room, the restaurants, the spa and especially the service were of a standard rarely seen outside of the Sofia Hilton (www.hilton.bg) where we had our reception four years ago. To our surprise we discovered that the same guy who looked after us so well back then at the Hilton is now the restaurant manager in Bansko.

Congratulations to Konstantin Zeuke, the Kempinski Hotel's General Manager for the level of perfection achieved by his staff!

While in Bansko we were of course confronted by the expected real estate construction and sales activities. The actual building sites are not a fraction of what I had expected since most of the projects that are advertised by the usual wolves, sharks, snakes and other forms of off-plan predators are not even close to breaking ground.

In the hotel we were surrounded by mainly Irish investors into these great "opportunities". It was delightful to hear the happy chatter in the breakfast room of these proud new owners of Bulgaria's tourism boom of the years to come. It really made no difference to them if the properties they had just purchased were in Bulgaria, Slovakia or Poland; all they cared about was the low price (and where else can you get a partial mountain view at 2000 euro a sq m), promises of snow (guaranteed from October-April) and political stability (January 1 2007 in the EU - so nothing can go wrong).

Teams of dynamic young investment advisors who looked like they just jumped out of a Marks and Spencer Men's Department brochure worked their over-tailored city slicker asses to the bone, in order to sign as many sales contracts a day as humanly possible.

"Yes Madam, corruption is down 97 per cent year-to-year, the mayor and the government are doing a great job, we know them all personally."

"No Sir, you do no have to worry about earthquakes, they don't exist here. And besides that, we adhere here in Bulgaria to the latest European standards; we get inspected all the time.  All the utilities such as water supplies, electricity and sewage are all built into the development and the roads will all be in place sometime soon."

"You will be happy to know that there will be many more ski-lifts in the national parks, since the Ministry of Environment does not see ski-slopes as a threat to the environment."

"The whole valley near the town of Razlog will be covered in many golf courses and this makes the local population very happy since they are now all unemployed…"

The best one I heard was that at least three billion euro of the EU funds earmarked for Bulgaria will be used for the development of infrastructure around the tourist resorts so the visitors will have little or no discomfort from the way Bulgarians live.

It suffices to say that none of these investors had ever heard of other towns, different resorts and were even worried that stopping in Sofia might not be safe.

My best wishes go to all of them, buyers and sellers alike. I hope they trade well and profitably since this is the way of the West and the path Bulgaria has chosen to follow.

I do hope that with this much EU money a direct non-stop rail link will be built. From the new Airport to new Bansko, straight through the mountains, so to avoid these people ever getting within sniffing distance of my neighbourhood where we already suffer from overvalued property that nobody wants to buy.

Oh yes, before I leave you in peace, I wanted to share my appreciation of the mall builders of Sofia. After returning from Bansko we went to have a look at both the City Center Sofia and the Mall of Sofia. I believe these structures (including the Tzum) are sent by Mr.God. Instead of pushing and shoving through the usual under- or overheated boutiques and other shops that decorate Sofia's high streets we can now visit the same in pleasant air-conditioned environments.
Shop well and buy wisely!

Koos Jan Schouten (1954) was born in Amsterdam, has lived in Bulgaria since 1998, owns webfactorybulgaria.com and has been married since 2002 to his lovely Lilly.