Sofia, Bulgaria

Monday, January 29

We left our apartment in Rome at 5:00 am in order to catch an 8:00 am flight to Sofia, Bulgaria (the locals pronounce it SO-fia).  We arrived on time and without incident – we even got all our luggage this time.  The cab ride from the airport was the equivalent of $10 USD.  The local currency is the LEV (pronounced Levah), which means Lion.   One LEV, written as Лв, is about 65 cents.  Oh yeah, they use the Cyrillic alphabet.

Our new second floor apartment is very close to the city center.  There is no elevator but the steps are very easy to climb.  The building is probably a leftover from the Soviet era but the apartment was completely renovated  in the last few years and everything is fresh and new.  It’s huge too!  In addition to a bathroom and a decent sized kitchen we have a bedroom, living room and full dining room.  Did I forget to mention the dishwasher and the second bedroom?  What a luxury!  There was one minor incident upon arrival: the WIFI was not working.  Someone came that evening and replaced the router.  Now everything is 100%.

In the afternoon we walked around Town to try to get our bearings.  The city is larger than we expected and there are parks everywhere.  Most of the buildings are from the Soviet era and have very little charm.  We did a little grocery shopping before heading home.  A new city – we have our work cut out for us; I doubt we’ll find over 100 churches here.

We’re not going to list churches anymore!

Distance walked: 7.4 miles

Tuesday, January 30

Normally I have a cheese omelette for breakfast each day.  We found that the only frying pan in the cupboard had a badly scratched teflon coating, which was unlikely to work well.  Deborah improvised.  She used a large soup pot.  It’s a little hard to do the flip but the results were great.

The first place we had to visit was the Alexander Nevski Cathedral.  Even if you’ve never been to Sofia it’s likely that you’d recognize it.  As the character Cher said in the movie Clueless, “It’s way famous”.  It’s just a fifteen minute walk from our apartment.

The Cathedral was built after Bulgaria was liberated from the Ottoman Empire in the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-1878 and is one of the largest Eastern Orthodox churches in the world.  Construction started in 1882 and was completed in 1912.  The Bulgarians were so grateful to the Russians for liberating them that they dedicated the church to a Russian Saint: Alexander Nevsky.

(Alexander Nevsky Cathedral)

The floor plan is different from your typical Roman Catholic Basilica.  You enter into a vestibule that is ornately decorated with frescos.  Here you will find a gift shop containing a large collection of icons.  The interior of the Cathedral is round with a very high dome.  There are several alters near the back that are highly decorated in the Byzantine style.  The walls are heavily fresco’ed, everything is covered in gold leaf and there are many icons on display.  The most important relic is a piece of one of the bones of the named saint.

(The Main Alter)

It was disappointing to see that the church was not in very good condition.  All of the frescos were badly faded and many of the walls were cracked and peeling. A large area of the ceiling had been damaged by water and had never been properly repaired.  The church had probably been neglected during the Soviet era and needs a lot of attention (more likely money) to bring it back.  It was very sad.

There was a funny incident while we were there.  When I started taking pictures a very excited priest came running over to me and said that it cost ten Лв to take pictures (about $6.50).  He rushed us over to the gift shop and closely supervised to make sure I paid.  He told me to be sure to keep the receipt.  A little later someone else confronted me (yes, that is the word) and asked to see my receipt.  He wrote something on it and tore off a piece.  I wasn’t going to be able to take pictures on a second day without paying.  It’s an interesting way to raise funds and one that I’ve never seen before.

Next we went over to see Saint Sofia Church, which was just a block away.  This church dates from at least the sixth century and was the inspiration for giving the city its present day name in the 14th century.  We weren’t able to explore this church because a wedding was about to start but we were able to tour the excavations below.  We’ll have to go back another time.

The cost for seeing the excavations was six Лв per person.  There was going to be an additional charge of 15 Лв if I wanted to take pictures.  I was beginning to see a pattern.  This time the camera would stay on my shoulder.  I offered a credit card but was refused with a rather sour look.  I suspected that Sofia was going to be a cash based society.

We entered a small cave-like room and were treated to a ten minute film.  It talked mostly about the history of Sofia throughout the ages.  We learned some interesting things.  Originally the site was a necropolis.  During Roman times, when the city was named Serdica, a building on this site was used for the Council of Serdica in 343 AD.  This council was a follow up to the more well known Council of Nicaea in 325 AD.  The present day church was built sometime between the fourth and sixth centuries.

Apparently the city of Serdica was a favorite of the Roman Emperor Constantine.  He spent a considerable period of time there and wanted to make it the capital of the Roman Empire.  Constantinople (present day Istanbul) was eventually chosen for strategic reasons, however.  In the 16th century, under the rule of the Ottoman Empire, the church was converted into a Mosque.  It was converted back to a church after the Russo-Turkish war.

As we walked through the excavations we saw a large number of small, now empty vaults, that had been used as tombs.  This was the original necropolis.  At the far end of the excavations we saw some remnants of mosaic floors dating from Roman times.  It turned out to be a good decision not to have paid the extra money to take photographs.

We decided to take the long route home and see what else was in the neighborhood.  We found a business district with small shops selling local foods.  The shops have no interior to speak of – they sell directly out of a window.  This is where we discovered banitsa.  These are long thin pastries made out of phyllo dough stuffed with all kinds of things.  We had one with spinach and cheese, one with cheese and leek and one stuffed with pumpkin covered in sugar.  Not only where they delicious but they were cheap.  Total cost: about $1.80.  Pizza is also popular.  It is mostly neapolitan style but it is crammed full of vegetables and meats.  They serve it on a stiff piece of cardboard, which makes it easy to eat.  Yum!  The locals add all sorts of things like ketchup and mayonnaise on top; I’m not sure that we’ll try that.

Distance walked: 5.2 miles

Thursday, February 1

Well, it’s official.  I guess we’ve been doing this for three months now.  Who knows where this will lead.

Today we took the ‘Free Sofia Tour’.  An organization called Association 365 gives these walking tours each day in several different languages.  We opted for English.  Our guide, a young man named Stanislav (an actor by trade), was a joy.  He had a thorough knowledge of the history of Bulgaria and knew the city well.  For two and a half hours we saw and talked about the major sights in the downtown area.  It was very informative and was a great introduction to the city.  We didn’t enter any of the buildings that we saw but now we have a larger list of places to go back and visit.  We’ll write about each as we visit.  He also mentioned similar tours focused on culture and the communist period.  We plan to do these as well.  They have a nominal cost.

Lunch was at a small restaurant serving typical Bulgarian food frequented by locals.  There were no menus (not that we could read them anyway).  It was cafeteria style.  We just pointed to what we wanted.  Deborah had a huge cabbage and carrot salad and what we think was an apple muffin.  I had the same salad and a ball of some kind of meat.  It was all delicious and cost about $3.00.

We’ve discovered two interesting things about meals at small, local restaurants.  People do not drink with their meals.  Also, seasonings are not used in the foods.  If you order a meatball you get a ball of meat (sometimes there are onions) but it has no garlic, no pepper, no oregano or anything else.  Only a few grocery stores stock any seasonings other than salt.

After walking around some more we decided to try some local coffee.  We went into a place called, “Costa Coffee”.  It turns out to be a UK based chain.  It looked exactly like a Starbucks and had a similar menu.  Next time we’ll be sure to find something really local.

Distance walked: 7 miles

Saturday, February 3

We learned that Sofia was hosting an ATP Tennis tournament this month.  Since the arena is on the other side of Town we decided that walking would give us a good chance to see that part of Town.

Our way took us through a park named Borisova Gradina.  When speaking of their parks they often refer to them as ‘gardens’, which is a literal translation of Gradina.  The park is huge.  It has a number of tennis courts, playgrounds for children, statues and monuments, sports stadiums and lovely wooded paths.

(Mound of Brotherhood commemorating those who fought against Fascism)

(Wooded Path)

When we finally got to the arena the ticket offices were closed.  We ended up booking online when we got home.  We got tickets to see the quarterfinals, which should include four singles matches and two doubles matches.  Grigor Dmitrov, a Bulgarian tennis player currently ranked number three in the world who won the tournament last year, was expected to play.  He recently pulled out due to a shoulder injury.  Stan Wawrinka, a Swiss tennis player ranked in the top five, is slated to play in his stead.

After that we went in search of tennis clubs.  There are several in that part of Town.  I wanted to see if I could find someplace to play.  We found a very nice club with red clay courts that can be rented for 13 Лв an hour (about $8.00).  That compares nicely with what I was paying in NYC (about $120).

By now it was about 2:00 pm and we were starving.  It was Saturday so it was hard to find a local restaurant that was open.  We settled for a chain restaurant called, “Quattro Stagioni”.  Deborah had pumpkin soup and cabbage salad.  Neither had any seasoning.  I had a pepperoni pizza.  It was all very good.

Distance walked: 12 miles (ties our record)