The strippers didn’t greet us with a Bulgarian equivalent of ‘Yaaas Queen’
When people ask us why we chose Sofia for our spontaneous
getaway, we have 2 reasons. 1) It’s cheap. 2) We like Sofia Vegara. And that’s
it. We knew precisely 0 about Bulgaria and its capital. Even after we booked
the flights it didn’t really occur to us to research it. This meant we arrived
on the Sunday with no idea what to expect. We may have predicted Eastern
Europeans, cheap food and a few cathedrals. But I don’t think we’d have thought
much about strip clubs, bucket hats, anti-corruption protests and a spa day.
The plane journey was pretty standard and as we walked out
into the foyer of Sofia’s airport, we searched for a map to find out how to get
to our airbnb. This was the first time it had dawned on any of us that Bulgaria
doesn’t use the same alphabet. As we stared blankly at a jumble of symbols, it
was as if a neon sign was pointing at us with the words ‘Clueless Tourists.’
Instantly a shuttle bus dude and a taxi driver ran up to us, eager to herd us
towards their vehicles. We chose the taxi guy (attempting to ignore his lack of
teeth and the prominence of his one gold gleaming canine). Yet as he led us out
and away from the normal taxi rank, things began to seem a bit dodge. He
continued to walk away from the main car park and out to a smaller parking
area, telling us the whole time ‘it’s fine it’s good it’s good.’ When we saw
his car (which just seemed to be painted yellow rather than an actual taxi), we
hurriedly grabbed our cases and made our excuses about getting the metro instead.
He then watched us proceed to walk right over to his competitors in the normal
taxi rank. Awkward.
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| No, thank you. |
Our taxi drive through Sofia was our first real sight of
what was on offer in the city. Because the flights were so cheap, we hadn’t
really thought about how far Sofia really is. It isn’t just another city in
Western Europe. This isn’t France or Rome. Near Turkey and Russia, it has a
strange mix of Ottoman style temples, neo-Byzantine facades and many, many,
cheap Communist era mouldy apartment blocks.
It seemed as if our airbnb would be another of these crumbly
blocks of cement and orange plaster. As we were lead up to our flat by our
host, Neli, there were even some cockroaches to celebrate our arrival. But
inside, Neli has managed to really make the most of the location. I’m not sure
I would have picked quite so many different faux marble tiles combined with
quite so many gold handles for the décor, but overall the flat was homey and
comfy and just what we needed on our short stay. Nels (officially The Airbnbae)
was adorably helpful, showing us a list of things we can check out.
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| Pretty much our first few hours in Sofia |
We spent a ridiculously long time lying on the bed and
eating. Something about being on holiday made us slightly fascinated with our
cameras and close ups of each other faces which filled up a good three hours.
As we had no idea what there was in Sofia, we had no To Do List and no rush to
really get anywhere. There was some karaoke and a lot of human jenga before we
eventually convinced ourselves to get outside.
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| One of our many food-related destinations |
The flat was just a walk from some of the big attractions in
Sofia but we soon got distracted by food. Another symptom of being on holiday-
we seemed to spend ¾ of the time either looking for, buying, or consuming food.
Okay, don’t judge, it’s a good way to get to know the city, alright? We now
knew how far the McDonalds was from the Happy Grill and how far the Ice Cream
Shop was from Spaghetti Bar (Yeah, not the most exotic cuisine, I’ll admit). It
wasn’t just eating though. We wedged in a smidge of culture by visiting the
tourist shop. Although we hadn’t actually seen any sights by this point, so we
couldn’t really justify buying a lot of merch. So instead, we made the leap and
got some highly fashionable Sofia Bucket Hats which are of course worth it as
they will complete every outfit back home in England.
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| Catwalk ready. |
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| See how fashionable they are? |
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| Do you wanna borrow my jumper? |
Okay so our first day wasn’t extremely cultural (although some would argue Fetish Bar is
cultural in some way). So for our second day we put in a bit more effort and
went on a free walking tour. Free Sofia Tour is a company name that is pretty
self explanatory. Our tour was run by the lovely Tommy who gave out sweets if
people answered questions. It was a really great way to see the place and gave
us a lot more of an understanding of the history and geography of Sofia, even
if we were a tad confused by the statue of Christian Saint Sofia. She was
a Christian saint who was martyrd when
she was murdered by the Pagans for hr beliefs. So, tactfully, the Bulgarian
government decided to dress her in a skin tight black dress and plonk a few
Pagan symbols on her arms. As you do.
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| Cleavage and an owl: Very saintly. |
We managed to get to see the Government buildings, the
National Theatre, and the famous Alexander Nevksy Cathedral. Completed in 1912,
the Bulgarian Orthodox Cathedral was built in neo-Byzantine style, with
stunning onyx, gold and marble domes. It is the perfect example of a building
you just couldn’t find in the West. The paintings inside are also a testament
to these differences, this many religious portraits (particularly the huge
painting of God on the ceiling) would never have survived unblemished after the
Reformation in England.
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| Obligatory tourist photo |
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| The Alexander Nevsky Cathedral |
Tommy also told us of a hotel that has been built on the
ruins of Serdica (the ancient name of Sofia) and the remains of an amphitheatre
that may have been a similar size to the Coliseum. There are bizarrely no
street signs pointing towards this pretty interesting attraction but we finally
turn up at the Arena di Serdica hot and sweaty. It’s a pretty luxurious hotel,
particularly compared with some of the dirtier areas of Sofia we’ve seen, so we
feel a bit awkward stumbling in and asking about the ruins. The bottom floor is
built around it, but in quite a strange way, as if it is more a design feature
than a major archaeological find. It’s not even mentioned in the website’s main
description online. They also hold functions on top of the ruins which is a bit
strange.
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| The ruins on the bottom floor are now a function area |
Anyway we are distracted by the signs for a spa and decide
to buy Zoe a chocolate massage for her birthday (and, no, it turns out, she
didn’t eat any, which seems to be like torture, coz how can you sit there and
not lick yourself!?) In fact, we fell in love with the Spa and booked in
treatments for all of us for the next morning. See, this is the thing about
Sofia. We had no expectations of what we wanted to see which means we could
just spontaneously decide to do random things like get yogurt massaged into our
faces (and, yes, turns out, Sasha did eat some and it was very much not
edible).
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| To eat or not to eat that is the question |
Speaking of spontaneity, we also bought some hair dye and
Dina helpfully volunteered to dye my hair brown. We sat on the kitchen floor of
our airbnb with my hands out like a Buddah statue trying to catch any brown
blobs that might fall. I kept on feeling the dye on my neck but Di assured me it
wasn’t. In the end, Dina accomplished pretty great coverage of all my hair… along
with my ears, neck, forehead, back and arms.
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| "Don't worry I'm being careful" |
We then brought in
Zoe’s birthday in Bar Friday –thanks to Tommy’s recommendation. It was pretty
edgy, with a photogenic plant wall and actually had some other young people in
it (so what else do you want in a bar?). I ordered a Bloody Mary because it
sounded gory, but it transpired it was just an edgy alcoholic gazpacho. Who
knew? This brings me to another feature of our trip: making all the locals hate
us. I don’t know how we managed it, but somehow whenever we ordered anywhere or
bought anything (from spa treatments to double vodka tonics) we made them hate
us…
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| Don't think they want us back tbh |
By the third day, we’d got a bit addicted to getting taxis.
There must be a Bulgarian National Secret that taxis are ridiculously cheap. I
mean how is it even possible to buy petrol when they charge around £6 for a
half an hour drive through central Sofia? It allowed us to easily get to the
Museum of Socialist Art which is quite far out from where we were. In quite a
business area, it is a bizarre sight. An area of grass is covered with Soviet
era statues. I think this guy Lenin was a bit of a big deal. This was another
thing we just wouldn’t be able to really experience in the West, the enormity
and power of these statues. Each one has such a clear agenda of imposing the
might of the regime and the crucial need for labour. This is contrasted really
interestingly with paintings inside depicting executions under the Communist
regime. As the Soviet era spanned quite a number of decades, there is a real
interesting mix of painting techniques and themes. On the taxi drive back, we
met Tony who was the keenest Bulgarian so far, excited to tell us about
everything there was to see in the county. He took quite a liking to Sasha as
she said she knew grime and they bonded over Skepta. Unfortunately, we declined
his offer to do spliff together…
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| The Museum of Socialist Art is pretty stunning to see |
Our final big cultural sight was the Sofia Synagogue. There
is a special balance in the city that has homed so many religions. In one
square there is the Synagogue to one side, the Banya Bashi mosque to the other,
and Sveta Nedelya Church to another, all three of them still open as
functioning temples. The Synagogue is the largest in Eastern Europe and is a
beautiful Sephardi synagogue completed in a Moorish design. An elderly
volunteer told us the fascinating history of Jewish survival in Bulgaria during
WW2. By this point Zoe was pretty much dying from hayfever, which the acoustics
of the Synagogue had made clear to everyone within a mile’s radius, so we head
back.
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| The beautiful Synagogue |
Just when we thought Sofia had stopped with its random
events, we walked towards our last dinner, and we met a protest. Admittedly, we
got a bit overexcited and took badges and yelled supportive things, before we’d
even worked out what the protest was about. They said it was ‘anti-corruption’
which sounds alright, although would anyone really have a pro-corruption rally?
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| Yay Protest |
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| Comrade Dina |
And thus completed our trip. From strippers to spas, from religion
to rallies, we felt we’d surveyed what Sofia had to offer. I think we’d all
recommend going to a city you know nothing about and deciding on the itinerary
whilst you’re there. It left us open to explore more and find out more
naturally rather than just through trip advisor. It also helped not having 4G
as we had to get to know the roads without a GPS (well, until we decided to get
cabs everywhere). So we left Sofia with a new found knowledge of strip clubs
and Soviet art, new statement Bucket Hats and –well, for me at least- dyed
brown blobs all over my upper body.
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