Sofia; Thursday, 10 October, 2019

I’d stayed overnight at a Premier Inn near Terminal 4, so that I didn’t have to get up in the complete middle of the night, although in the end I was still awake at 04:30. After a nice hot shower to wake up I headed out of the hotel and down to the bus stop to catch the bus over to Terminal 5. Clearly this was close to a major shift changeover at the airport as all the buses were absolutely packed, and there were several other hotel guests waiting at the stop with me, all with luggage.

Over the space of 20 minutes two buses came through so full that virtually nobody could get on. The third bus finally arrived nearly 30 minutes after I’d left the hotel and this one did have space. But it also had an exceptionally grumpy and rude bus driver who refused to take anyone with luggage shouting that we should pay for the hotel shuttle bus and that he was full up (despite their only being a handful of people standing on the lower deck). He eventually left after kicking off the one family that had tried to board.

At that point it was clear that this was going to be an expensive morning, so I pulled out my phone and flagged down a passing Uber to take me over to the airport. On the way we passed the last bus which had clearly emptied out at Terminal 4 as there was virtually nobody left on it. In the end we also overtook the 2nd bus, so I ended up at Terminal 5 about the time I was originally intending to. Thankfully, still early enough to have a very quick journey through the airport and then an uneventful flight over to Sofia.

The last time I’d checked in early at Heathrow it had been my trip to Corfu, which resulted in my luggage having a very different first day to the holiday from me, so I was naturally nervous about what awaited me on landing. Thankfully, it was an incredibly efficient airport with border guards who smiled and a baggage system that spat my bag out onto the belt less than 20 minutes after our plane had first hit the tarmac. I was straight through the rest of the airport and over to the metro station to catch the metro into town, where I changed onto the tram round to the hotel.

I checked in and freshened up a little before heading back out again. My first stop being just a short walk from the hotel at the very impressive Saint Aleksandar Nevski Cathedral. This gold domed cathedral is the primary cathedral of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church and it shows with the attention to detail on the building and the impressive display of icons and frescos inside.

Having looked round the cathedral I walked the 40 yards or so across the road to another equally impressive church – St Sofia’s. What it lacks in bling compared to the Cathedral it makes up for in age, having been on the site since the 6th century. I spent some time looking around the inside of the church before I descended down into the crypt and the museum housed in there that looks at some of the ruins and tomb of the old city.

After finishing my tour of the crypt I headed back up to daylight and went for a wander through the heart of old Sofia. I reached the very centre of town where a couple of major roads intersect each other and to get any further you have to go down into a pedestrian underpass as the roads above are too dangerous to cross. This is, however, not like any other pedestrian underpass I’d been into before, as underneath the road are the large scale remains of the old Western Gate and parts of the city walls of Serdica, the Roman city that eventually became modern day Sofia.

Ruins contemplated, and possibly the longest I’ve ever spent in a pedestrian underpass, I re-emerged on the other side of the major traffic intersection and also onto the main North South street of the modern city – lined on both sides by a large number of restaurants, which reminded me that the last thing I’d had to eat had been some breakfast many hours earlier. As it was now 17:30 Bulgarian time I decided that was late enough to find somewhere to stop and grab an early dinner.

Dinner completed I wandered back on myself a bit up to the Rotunda church of St George and the further Roman ruins that surround that church. The church itself is the oldest standing still functioning building in the city, dating from the 4th century, though the archaeological remains surrounding it could be older – they are very impressive though with a fine example of a hypocaust and evidence of the former Roman Sewers.

With the light starting to fade I made may way back to the tram stop and caught the tram back to my hotel for a well deserved relax and an early night.