Sofia; Friday, 11 October, 2019

I had intended on having a leisurely breakfast, but due to the number of people staying at the hotel, and the lack of tables in the breakfast area, I ended up having to wait about 15 minutes before being able to get a seat and then had to rush breakfast to make sure I could still get out in time for my first stop of the day, which was the open top bus tour of the city.

As there were only three tours a day I’d wanted to make the early one so that I could maximise my time in Sofia, so after rushing breakfast I headed out of the hotel and up to the back of the cathedral where the bus was already waiting to pick up passengers.

The tour lasted just under the hour and took in all of the main sites across the city, giving a good overview of the layout of Sofia as well as some ideas for other places that I wanted to visit. Back at the cathedral at the end of the tour I had a bit of a wander through the old city and eventually found myself at the Sofia History Museum, located in a very spectacular building right in the heart of the city.

I spent quite some time looking round the museum and it’s various exhibits, and was intending on going for lunch, but to get there I needed to walk through parts of the ruins of Ancient Serdica – the old Roman city that modern day Sofia was built on, and I ended up spending about an hour looking round the different parts of the remains, including some very detailed remains kept out of the weather by being located under one of the main roads – this included almost perfectly preserved roman water pipes and a pretty impressive mosaic floor.

By now I was famished so I found a nice restaurant on the main street and had a leisurely lunch to make up for the rushed breakfast of the morning. I then headed the short distance back to the Rotunda church of St George and had a look round both the church and the set of Roman ruins that lie directly behind it.

From the Rotunda it was a short walk under the presidential palace to the National Archaeological Museum. The museum is housed in a former mosque and has a large collection of artefacts found in and around the city. Obviously, due to the nature of all the ruins that are visible a lot of the artefacts are from the Roman period, but there are also items from earlier periods in history and some impressive item from the later Ottoman period in the city.

Next door to the museum is a pleasant café/bar and I stopped there for a late afternoon drink and to rest my legs from all the walking round museums that I’d done. I also took the opportunity to check in with a colleague who, by pure coincidence, was also in the city this weekend to take part in the Marathon that was due to take place on Sunday, so we arranged to meet up a little later for dinner.

Refreshed I had a bit more of a wander around the central area of the city before picking up the tram and heading back to the hotel to freshen up in advance of dinner.

My friend and two of her friends from her running club had arrived on the Friday flight from London and by the time I got back to my hotel were just heading down to the Marathon expo to complete their registration and get their bib numbers, so after freshening up I headed back out up to the Cathedral and met them there – as it was part way on their route back from the Expo, and the most obvious place to direct people to. We stopped in a little bar round the back of the cathedral for a drink before wandering through town to the main street and having dinner in one of the many restaurants there.

After dinner we wandered back to their Airbnb apartment before we parted ways, I headed over to the tram stop to catch the tram back to my hotel and a well-deserved sleep.