So many things to do in Sofia, but so little time!
Even when we spend a week somewhere we still don’t have enough time to see all the things we want to or do all the things we want to do. Granted, we have to work a few hours during the weekdays so we don’t actually have a full week, otherwise we would see more. Sometimes we get such an itch to do all and see all that we can, and if we can’t we get the nagging feeling that we’ll regret it later.
Nature smells great! City smells… not so great
We didn’t expect to find so many different places to visit in Bulgaria, but there were. We had to come to terms that we were going to miss out on some cool spots. However, this didn’t stop us from having a good time and finding some fun things to do! We also had to remind ourselves that we needed a break to relax because this “stay-cation” is hard work! Bouncing from place to place so frequently makes us wish we could go back to Budapest and soak in the baths again.
We set out for the city to do our usual walk about, searching for anything random as well as the spots where tourists and photographers swarm to like the Russian Church and the Church of St Petka of the Saddlers and… man there’s a lot of churches! We loved the Alexander Nevsky Cathedral and came back several times to look at it.
We desperately wanted to visit the seven lakes and Rila Monastery, but with the lack of time we couldn’t make it. If we do a second round through Europe we’ll have to refer back to the list of places we miss!
Instead of going to the seven lakes and Rila Monastery we made a half day trip from Sofia by bus to the Boyana Church and the Boyana Waterfall. Boyana Church is a UNESCO site, and a tiny medieval Bulgarian Orthodox church situated outside the city. We were able to view without a group- thank goodness because not many people can fit! There was a guard who would open the door to the church with these huge keys he carried and then locked it when we entered (they’re serious about maintaining it as best as possible, the walls had layers decaying).
Boyana Waterfall lies further up the mountain in the Boyana Churches’ backyard. It took us a couple hours to hike to the waterfall and back, but with serene and peaceful landscape we couldn’t complain.
Num Nums
We had a couple of small food joints that were located just beneath our apartment so we had easy access to all the moussaka, shopska salata and banitsa that we wanted. For the days that we were working it was our form of relaxing. We would sit in our little room in the attic of the apartment that had a loft and gigantic windows that made up most of the opposite wall. It’s cool to stay in people’s homes wherever we travel because it adds so much to the experience to see how they live.
What do you like to do when you travel, relax or go out and see all that you can?
