Sofia; Monday, 23 October, 2023

After several early starts in a row I decided, as I didn’t have much planned, to have a bit of a lie-in, which was rudely interrupted just after 9am by the drilling from the floor above as the builders started up work on the hotel refurbishment – not certain if they had been working during the weekend as I’d been out by then every morning!

A much more leisurely breakfast completed I headed back up to my room, packed my bag and checked out of the hotel, leaving my luggage in their store room before heading out into town.

I had intended on visiting the Serdica ruins museum to have another look around that, but unlike almost every other museum in the city it turns out that it does close on a Monday, so that attempt was thwarted, so instead I went for a slow stroll around the city centre, stopping off more of the ruins of the old city in the grounds of the St George Rotunda church and then heading over towards the City Garden.

The park runs from the main road by the government ministries (and former communist party HQ) to the national theatre and is a pleasant green space right in the heart of the city. In front of the theatre is a large water feature with lots of jets and the statue of a dancer at one end facing the theatre at the other.

From the park I headed back onto the main street and stopped there for a long lunch break, before continuing on down to the National Palace of Culture and having a bit more of a wander around the park there.

I then caught the metro back up through the city centre to the Lions’ Bridge, an impressive structure with a lion statue on each corner, that’s not really done justice by the tiny stream that runs underneath it. From the lion’s bridge I then caught the tram over to the equally impressive sounding Eagles bridge which repeats the same formula – four impressive statues of eagles over a little stream.

By now it was time to hop back on the metro and head over to the hotel to pick up my luggage and then head on out to the airport to start my journey home.