Bulgaria was our first Balkans destination – we only had limited time here but were able to spend a few days exploring Sofia and Plovdiv.
Sofia
A cosmopolitan city with a fast-growing young population. From the glistening golden domes of Alexander Nevsky church to the iconic tiered ex-communist headquarters, and the hidden gem under Serdika metro station (read more to find out what I’m talking about!), Sofia is packed with historic churches to visit, neighborhoods to explore and wine bars to indulge in. If you want to save money on a taxi from the airport, opt for the metro instead, there’s a metro station at the airport which goes straight to the city centre. We used the metro to traverse the whole of Sofia and found it to be a cheap and efficient mode of transport.
Like many parts of the Balkans, we noticed that Bulgarian don’t mince their words. For example, when we entered Divaka restaurant and I asked if there was a table available, the waitress just gestured to the empty tables in a sarcastic way and said ‘pick which one you want.’ Some people may mistake this for rudeness, just check the google reviews of many hotels and restaurants if you don’t believe me. I came to the conclusion it’s just a harmless mannerism and quirk of the local population, to be expected and not taken offense to. This may be a real shock for some international tourists who are used to service with a smile. All I can say is Welcome to the Balkans!
Accommodation
Airbnb close to St. Partriarch Euthymius metro station. We stayed in an Airbnb on the top floor of an old communist apartment block. The apartment was fine but the block itself was quite creepy, especially as it was dark when we first arrived; the whole place looked abandoned from the outside.
Foodie Places
Divaka – a chain restaurant serving cheap and cheerful Balkan classics, expect many meat-based menu items here.
Izbata Tavern – a great place to have dinner, catering mainly for the tourist crowd.
Sofiyska Banitsa – a great place to try banitsa, a filo pastry pie with various fillings such as cottage cheese, spinach or meat. I have a confession to make about banitsa, I actually enjoyed the Lidl bakery version more than the one from Sofiyska but it’s always best in my opinion to eat local rather than Lidl.
Hadjidraganov’s Cellars – covered with traditional knick-knacks, this place was more like an ethnographic museum than a restaurant.
Rolling Dogs – if you have a craving for hot dogs and beer, Rolling Dogs is the place to go. It serves top ‘topped dogs’ and fries.
Garafa Wine Shop – a nice wine bar with limited seating outside the front of the shop facing the street, a glass of wine is about £3 here so well worth indulging in a tipple before dinner.
Activities
Free walking tour with Guruwalk – here’s a selection of the places we stopped at during the free walking tour and others that we discovered ourselves by mooching about: Alexander Nevsky Cathedral, St Sofia Church, Church of St. Nicholas the Miracle-Maker, Ivan Vazov National Theater, City Garden (the main square in Sofia, keep an eye out for events here, we were lucky enough to stumble onto a pop concert and we enjoyed it all the more since it was free!) National Assembly of Bulgaria, Presidential Palace of the Republic of Bulgaria (they have a changing of the guard here at certain times so keep an eye out for soldiers marching around in full uniform), St. Nedelya Church, Saint Petka Church, Sofia Monument, Banya Bashi Mosque, Sofia Synagogue, Cathedral of Saint Joseph.
Serdika Metro Station sits alongside Roman ruins that were discovered when the metro was being built, a hark back to the city’s Roman history. The ruins have been excavated and are now built into part of the metro station and tunnels. This was a nice surprise when walking through the modern city of Sofia. The ruins are directly below the old headquarters of the communist party and other important government buildings.
Serdika Roman ruins and St. George Rotunda Church
Free food tour with Guruwalk – we thoroughly enjoyed tasting tarator, a yogurt-based summer soup made with cucumber and garlic. Our guide pointed out how Bulgaria is famed across the world for having the best yogurt, who would’ve known! It was a good introduction to Balkan food such as ajvar, lyutenitsa (similar to ajvar but made with tomatoes instead of peppers) and mekitsa (a deep fat-fried flat doughnut with toppings).
Wine tasting with Airbnb Experiences (total cost was about £15 each) – we made it our goal to try wine produced in every Balkan country; this wine tasting experience was a good way to start this exploration of Balkan wines. After a slight hiccup at the beginning, i.e. the owner not realising we’d booked the experience, we arranged to return on another day. The explanation of the wines by the owner including their origin, grape variety and production was excellent and we couldn’t resist the cheese and salami nibbles provided!
Guzzling wine at Coupage Wine & Cheese Shop
Boyana Church, a UNESCO World Heritage site located on the outskirts of Sofia, is a private medieval chapel commissioned by a wealthy couple around the 10th century AD. It’s revered for the amazing 13th century frescoes that decorate the interior including a painting of the husband and wife patrons and saints. The UNESCO website states that Boyana Church is ‘one of the most complete and perfectly preserved monuments of east European medieval art.’ Due to the size of the chapel there’s a limit to how many people are allowed in at once, with time limits also in place to allow everyone an opportunity to have a peek without waiting around for too long. There is also a strict no photographs rule imposed inside the church and we were only allowed 10 minutes inside the tiny chapel with an English-speaking guide before we had to leave and the next group of people were ushered in. The guide pointed out a semi-nude female figure fresco and mentioned how unusual it was for the females to be painted nude during the medieval period.
There are many tours available which include a stop at Boyana Church however it’s possible to reach by public bus, simply catch the 64 bus from outside Balgariya metro station and hop off at Boyansko Hantche. We had trouble catching the bus back from Boyansko Hantche as the driver refused to stop at the designated bus stop, so we instead got the 64 bus back to central Sofia from Rezidentsiya Boyana bus stop, a short walk away from Boyansko Hantche.
Plovdiv
After reviewing our options, we decided to book a day trip to Plovdiv with Traventuria as it worked out to be a similar price to getting there independently. Our guide was informative and professional so I would highly recommend using this company. Highlights of the tour included visiting the Theatre of Philippopolis (or peering through the metal bars as it turned out because we didn’t want to pay the entrance fee), meandering around the Old Town and admiring the rich merchant mansions like the former family home turned ‘Historical Museum – Exhibition Renaissance’ which is situated next to the iconic Gate “Hisar Kapia”. Many examples of Bulgarian Revival architecture are visible in Plovdiv Old Town and we enjoyed walking through this area. We also managed to squeeze in a quick visit to the Ethnographic Museum which has some fantastic displays of traditional Bulgarian clothing upstairs, and found time to take in the ornate building and manicured gardens in which the museum is housed. You can’t miss the stark contrast of the Old Town, full of cobbled streets and historic homes and churches, with the modern main shopping avenue (ul. Knyaz Alexander I). For lunch we grabbed some slices of pizza from a vendor in ul. Knyaz Alexander I to maximize our free time in Plovdiv, however we did notice some nice restaurants and cafes close to the intersection of ul. Zagred and ul Zlatarska which looked tempting. The newer part of Plovdiv is also built on the top of Roman ruins, which are visible underground at parts and make an intriguing addition to an otherwise pretty normal city high street.
