Sofia Surprise

A few months after our great summer trip, we are back on a plane headed to Bulgaria after multiple recommendations. This time M & O were completely surprised that we were traveling overseas. I’m pretty sure I won’t be able to pull off such a good surprise again - at least not for the foreseeable future.

Our flights were smooth and on time and thankfully not too crowded so both girls slept the majority of our first leg through Paris. It also helped we were aboard one of Air France’s new planes.

We arrived to Bulgaria at 4pm and hopped in a cab to head to our hotel. The ride took about 25 minutes (in traffic) and cost us a whopping $5! (We ended up giving our driver a $20- hoping to add his monthly salary which he let us know averaged $600 a month). Despite the extremely low salaries, we saw very little begging compared to recent visits to Germany and the Czech Republic.

As we drove from the airport, the communist style apartment blocks were reminiscent of St Petersburg, but here there are many more McDonalds almost one every quarter mile.

For dinner we decided to try Happy Bar and Grill, a Greek chain with many branches around the city. One thing we heard consistently was Bulgarian food is a mishmash of different foods from its neighboring countries, i.e. baklava, kebab, burek, just adding their own twist. 

After a good night of sleep and an amazing breakfast at the restaurant we headed to our first tour of the trip, Free Sofia City Tour. This tour was probably the smallest of all the free walking tours we have done likely due to the timing in October and possibly due to Bulgaria being a less touristy destination. We joined 6 other Israeli older couples for a three hour walk of the city. 

The Free Sofia Tour was a great way for us to get orientated around the city and then go back to all the sites we stopped by to get a closer look. The weather was a perfect 70 degrees which kept O from quickly overheating.

One of the stops included mineral springs in the middle of the city. The fountains are always 40 degrees Celsius no matter the weather outside and people come from all parts of the city to fill up their water jugs believing the minerals in the water have healing powers. Not sure about the healing thing, but they definitely have the smelly thing - sulfur. (For those of you who have visited Israel think Hamat Gader but less smelly).

Sofia's Mineral Springs

Grand Sofia Synagogue

Although Bulgarians claim to not be religious there are many churches all around the city and one mosque and synagogue. The one thing these churches are missing were towers to climb - a slight disappointment for both girls. The most famous church in Sofia is the Alexander Nevsky Cathedral, interestingly the third Alexander Nevsky Church we have visited (we visited the ones in Tallinn and St. Petersburg this summer). All of these churches were named after Saint Alexander Nevsky. 

Alexander Nevsky Church

At first I found it odd, but then I guess we have many synagogues called Beth Israel or Beth El.

The most interesting part of the tour was visiting the ancient site of Serdica, an ancient Roman city whose ruins were uncovered within the last 20 years when the city of Sofia was expanding its metro station and found remnants and ruins of a city. 

Not too shabby of a morning commute walking next to ruins from over a century ago.

Ancient Serdica - Serdica Metro Station

Sofia is also full of different markets around town, which offer different products, all of which we insisted on visiting. Our first market stop was Central Market Hall, which we compared to Central Market Hall in Budapest, however this market doesn’t even compare. There are a few food stalls and a souvenir shop or two but in general pretty quiet and not that busy. The next market considered more of an antique market is near Alexander Nevsky Church and includes many communist relics including old street and building signs and of course some matryoshka dolls (at a much cheaper price than what we saw in Russia). The third market and my favorite was the Ladies Market. I’ll have to check on why they call it the ladies market since most of the items sold are fresh produce with the scattering of ladies underwear shops.

Entrance of Ladies Market

One thing we noticed at all three markets, outside from the dirt cheap items that were sold, was the absence of other tourists. Every where we went people spoke to us in Bulgarian and assumed we were locals. Apparently my name or at least the spelling of my name is local to Bulgaria. One night for dinner we ate a popular Bulgarian restaurant called Shtastlivetsa. The hostess took us to our table and when the waiter came, he addressed us in Bulgarian, and when we answered in English he told us that we would have to move as our table was reserved for Deskalo!

The same company that operates the Free Sofia Tour just started giving a Free Jewish Tour (as of April 2019). Our guide Slavyan, is a Bulgarian Jew who only discovered he was Jewish at the age of seven. He told his family’s story of living as Jews during WWII, during 45 years of communism post war and today. Every city that we have had the opportunity to take a Jewish tour, we have taken it, and although so much of the history - especially that during and prior to WWII is the same - we are always amazed to hear stories of those who risked their lives to save Jews. In Bulgaria’s case, there were many who played a role in saving Bulgaria’s almost 50,000 Jews, one of whom was Metropolitan Kiril, head of the Bulgaria Christian Orthodox Church, who stood on the train tracks at Plovdiv stopping the deportation of Jews to camps. While all but 1,000 of these Jews emigrated to Israel, the Jewish community in Sofia is growing and many are sharing their stories.

Memorial to Righteous Gentiles

Our next posts will take us outside of Sofia to Rila Monastery and Plovdiv and hopefully will also have some great food pics!