EZERETZ HOTEL
2 Peyo Yavorov Blvd,
Blagoevgrad
Tel: 073/ 886 611, 887 555 [www.ezeretz.com]

The Ezeretz Hotel is on the southern edge of Blagoevgrad, catering to tourists, businessmen and travellers on the highway to Greece, on which several signs for the hotel are prominently displayed. It is well-located, as in addition to being a university town and one of the largest and most prosperous cities in the region, Blagoevgrad is less than half an hour away from Rila Monastery. This makes it an attractive place for tourists to spend a night or two while exploring the area. The hotel’s new construction is an inviting change from the many leftover communist-era hotels more prevalent outside of Sofia and a few tourism hotspots, and, situated on the edge of the city, it is easy to access from highway E79.

The hotel itself is a new building, remarkable among other things for the glass elevator on the front. Not very desirable for anyone afraid of heights, but it is neat – a nice little touch that I hadn’t seen in a while. For five leva, you can use the guarded parking lot in front with a fence and a gate that is closed at night, but unfortunately there are an inadequate number of places relative to the number of rooms – several times while staying here, we have been forced to leave vehicles outside or at a nearby guarded lot because the one at the hotel was simply full. An annoyance like that could have been avoided with a little more foresight in the design phase, but for whatever reason was not.

The rooms themselves are a little small, but nice – most are fairly basic, although livable, and more importantly, well-cleaned. The views of the mountains that many of the rooms afford are really quite beautiful. The view of the city on the other side isn’t quite as inspiring, but the hotel is hardly to be blamed for the aesthetic shortcomings of communist residential architecture. Blagoevgrad is a lovely place, really, but has its share of drab concrete apartment builds just like any other. There is the universal annoyance that the card for the door also works the lights, so that if one person goes out, either they will be without a key or their roommate will be without light – I know that it’s like that in most places, but it still bugs me. As a plus, the hotel offers free wireless, but as a minus, it never did work in my room – I had to go downstairs to the lobby and connect there.

The hotel restaurant is quite large, with two separate rooms and terrace seating overlooking the pool – the website claims that more than 300 people could be seated, though I am somewhat doubtful. At any rate, there will almost always be a seat, and there has been a wide variety of good food offered on my every visit. The buffet-style breakfast is also commendable, with a good selection of cheese, sausage, toast, eggs, juice, etc.

In addition to the basic necessities of rooms and a restaurant, the hotel has a lot of extras. There is an outdoor pool complete with bar from which there is a lovely view. The pool is hardly Olympic-sized, but is large enough to have a good swim in, and the bar next to it is open in the summer. Additionally, there is another bar in the lobby which is open year-round. There is also an indoor pool, a spa centre complete with gym and solarium, a kiddie playground, ping-pong and tennis, a soccer field, and many other such amenities. The hotel also offers a shuttle service around the city – it is possible to walk to the centre from the hotel, but it can be a little far for some. For businesses, they have a large conference hall that is available to guests.

All this doesn’t come cheap, however – rooms are 86 leva a night for a single, and 98 for a double. That includes breakfast and access to all the facilities, except for the guarded parking lot which is five leva more. In my experience, the quality does match or even exceed the price in comparison to other hotels of this type, and would certainly be well worth it to those willing to take advantage of the extensive facilities – a group trip or conference would be very well served.

All in all, it’s a good place to stay – they strive for and generally maintain the high end of quality without quite passing over into luxury, and though their prices are by no means cheap they do give you your money’s worth if you can take advantage of everything they have to offer.