Our night trip to Sofia was long. We left at 10:00 from Sirkeci Station in Istanbul. Around 4 a.m., we were awoken by the train guy to check out of Turkey. This took an hour. Just after we got back on the train and fell asleep, the Bulgarians wanted our passports again. This took another hour. We finally arrived an hour late to Sofia. We tried to contact our Couchsurfing host, but the phones were being weird and wouldn't let us call her. Eventually, we got in touch with her and met her at the station. For the rest of the day, we hung out with her at the apartment and went to a concert later that evening in a park in central Sofia. It was nice to just relax and take it easy. Here are some pics we took on the train.
Our day in Sofia was great. The main sites are located within a small area in the city center. We had some lunch and went for a stroll. Within 30 minutes, we'd passed various churches, a synagogue, and a mosque. The city has a long history that dates back to the 7th century BC and a group called the Thracians. It was later conquered by the Romans, the Huns, the Byzantines, the Bulgarians, and most recently, the Ottomans. It has a history of various groups living within the area and there are traces of all of them. From the Romans, you can visit the Rotunda of St. George in the middle of the city. It dates back to the 4th century AD and is the oldest building in the city.
One of the icons of the city is the statue of St. Sophia that stands opposite the presidential palace. Off to the right of it is the Sofia Mineral Baths Building. It opened after the Turkish baths building was damaged and continued to provide a public bath for the city. It was decorated in a style reminiscent of Vienna Secession. A central feature of Sofia is the presidential palace. It's not as heavily guarded as some head's of state offices and is referred to as part of the Largo. The Largo is a set of three buildings designed in the classic socialist style. They have hard lines and look like images of the old Eastern Bloc countries. The streets all throughout the Largo are made of small yellow brick. It looks like the Wizard of Oz come to life and makes for an uncomfortable taxi ride. On Sunday, we walked through the National Museum of Art since it would have been closed on Monday.
Here are some of the paintings they have on display there. We learned that the capital backwards N in Cyrillic is the short i sound in English.
The inside is old and classic looking.
Since the Russian influence is ever present throughout the Balkan states, this old church comes as no surprise to find. It was built in 1882 after the Russians helped free the Bulgarians from the Ottoman Turk rule. They put it on the site where a mosque stood. That'll teach 'em. The inside was very dark and stale smelling.
Something enjoyable about Eastern Europe is that the Cathedrals are not all done in the same style. The major one in Sofia is named for Alexander Nevsky, a man given saint status by the Russian Orthodox Church. He lived in the 13th century and was named Prince under his father Yarosav II of Vladimir. He's considered a hero because he helped fend off the Swedes, Germans, and Muslims. It, like the Russian Church, was built to honor the soldiers who died in the battles against the Ottomans to liberate Bulgaria.
One of the last places we visited was the new Cultural Center. Our CS host told us that it was empty for the most part but there were lots of people out and about enjoying the day. A thunderstorm was off in the distance giving the city a good lightning show. We made for the bus before the rain arrived and just made it. We headed back to collect our things and our host drove us to the train station to catch our overnight train to Bucharest.
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