The Ham Nomads

7 May 2015. <BG> Sofia —

Today, into Sofia. We took the bus as far as the metro station, then took the metro into town. The stations are new and clean, the trains smooth. A positive experience.

It's strange to see Italian written as if Serbian ...
ПИЦА = PIZZA, СОЛЕ МИО = SOLE MIO

We got out at the University station, where there is a tourist office. (We had actually called in here yesterday, parking nearby, but the place was closed — May 6 is St George's day, a public holiday in Bulgaria.) Armed with a map of the city, we were ready for business.

It was cool, a lot cooler than yesterday, and trying hard to rain all day (and sometimes succeeding), but not a bad day for walking around.

We went walked along Tsar Osvoboditel Boulevard (булевард Цар Освободител) past the National Assembly Hall, into Narodno Sabranie Square (where there is a delightful statue of a couple of deer), along to the Russian Church of St. Nicholas of Myra the Wonderworker.

Then we went across to the St. Alexander Nevsky Cathedral. This is truly mind-blowing. The two top domes and two of the lower domes were gilded in 2006, and they look absolutely magic. But when you go inside, you find a huge open space — it can accommodate 5,000 — with four large domes high over your head. It's fairly dark inside, but there are huge chandeliers which, if they were fully lit, would light up the place until it glowed!

We then walked down to Slaveykov Square, with its famous statue of Petko and Pencho Slaveykov and its wonderful hoard of second-hand books being sold from bookstalls in the square.

Sweet and nut stalls abound

One of Sofia's trams

Sofia's taxis are mainly yellow!

We then walked down to and along the wide pedestrian avenue, Graf Ignatiev Street (Улица Граф Игнатиев), lined with stores, with trees and flower boxed all the way along either side — and well populated with sidewalk cafes. The cafe society is alive and thriving in Sofia!

On our way back we noticed a hairdressing salon, so we both dropped in for a desperately needed cut. Then we made our way back to the station to take the train and bus back out to our campsite, where we settled in, Warren to continue writing the blog, Suzie her journal.

Distance driven — today, nil; to date, 19,545 miles ( 31,408 km )