A tour of Sofia

We purposely came to Bulgaria a little early so that we could do some tourism before we pick up Simon. We don't know how much we will be able to take him out and about but we also wanted to take in some more of the Bulgaria culture on this trip. When Simon asks about his homeland, I want to be able to at least tell him something:)

We were blessed by getting connected with a missionary that lives in Sofia who offered to give us a walking tour. I am pretty sure that we saw all the sights we would have seen on the official free sofia walking tour, but I am sure we saw a few of them in more detail. And as we were walking and talking we were also able to get to know Cameron and hear about his experiences living in Sofia for 3 years as a missionary. We walked and talked for over 3 hours!! He is a history buff so we learned A LOT about Sofia and Bulgaria and the many, many ruins and churches we toured. My brain feels fried out from all that I learned!! I could do tons more research on this very interesting and very old place. Constantine called it "my rome" way back in the day. At that time it was called Sardica. I am telling you, this place is OLD, probably the oldest place that I have ever visited. Although that is not true for Rachel and our guide who batted around stories of visiting other very old places in Turkey. VERY interesting!

So we started out at our hotel and walked toward the city center. We crossed the lion bridge and eventually came to a courtyard area with a fountain. There were people selling honey at little stands. People lounged around on benches around the fountain. One building near us was a Mosque...it used to be a church but when the Turks took over they made it into a mosque. Another building there was a turkish bath house.




our hotel, the budapest!

the lion bridge







mosque

Then we walked out of there and past the "white house", this building was built when the communist party took over. We were sad to learn that christian pastors were taken from their homes and tortured in the basement of this place when the communists outlawed Christianity.

So, at some point in the last few years the Bulgarians began to build a metro system. While they were building they uncovered Roman ruins! (now that is something that NEVER happens in the states!) So they had to stop their project and start excavating...so they have set up a few ways for you to few them. You can stand above them, looking down on them or you can go down some stairs and see them behind some glass. You used to be able to walk under there, but they have since closed that...not sure why. When we walked down the stairs to get a closer look at the ruins we were able to see a very small little church. We went inside, you couldn't take pictures in it, but I did buy a little postcard of a saint slaying a dragon. (when you walk into Simon's orphanage they have this picture on the wall, so I thought I would take it home as a memento of the Pleven baby house)

here are candles right outside of this church, they light the candles for the dead

After that we walked to a very very old church in deed, the St George Rotunda, this is the oldest building in Sofia. It was surrounded by a building, so that it serves as a courtyard for a hotel on one-side, and the president's corders on another end and we weren't sure what the other buildings were, they looked like apartments? So we were able to go into this tiny rotunda church, we couldn't take pictures but we did enjoy the air-conditioning :) There was a sign that said that visiting was free but that we should buy items at the church because God would bless our purchases :) I almost bought a 4 pack of items from the "holy land", it had holy oil, water from the Jordan, dirt from the holy land and frankincense from the holy land. It could have all been mine for only 6 leva. There were also ruins around back that used to be a part of this building. The ruins included a roman bath.

st george rotunda

view from the back, ruins behind rotunda

rachel and I examining the back of the presidential corder

Then we walked out of this area, only to be just in time to see the "changing of the guard" at the president's place. (please note, we were unclear on whether or not there is a president right now, or what really goes on in his "corders" or place??)

they did quite the fancy walking!

Next up, we walked around down some stairs and into a hotel. This story might sound familiar, this hotel was being built when low and behold, MORE RUINS were discovered! So at first they just stopped building to check things out, what they found was amazing. One end of a huge Roman amphitheater, the rest of it is below the other buildings near the hotel. The hotel finally decided to just excavate and restore their part of it and use it as a tourism thing for their hotel. We went down inside and checked it out. I just kept imaging people in evening gowns drinking cocktails around these ruins at a very formal wedding or something. It was very beautiful.

view from the lowest level of the hotel

Next, we walked to the church of saint sofia. This was a very beautiful church as well. You can't take photos inside but we were able to listen to a beautiful choir at a memorial service that was going on while we were there. Then we discovered, much to the excitement of our guide, that they had finally finished excavating their ruins (the ones under their building) and they were open for a tour. We paid to get in there, a family price of 10 leva, to get in but we didn't pay the 15 leva that would allow us to take pictures. You will have to take my word on it, it was pretty cool, they had glass steps all over where you could go up and down into the ruins. They had a few video screens with some historical data in english! (big plus) In parts of it we could hear the service going on from above, which was cool, although I was worried they would be able to hear Jon's voice carrying from underneath. I am sure that is just what they wanted at the memorial service was a booming voice speaking english from under the floor! :)

The big finally was the Alexander Nevisky church. If you have done any research on tourism in Sofia this is another big one. The church is HUGE, in fact it is one of the largest eastern orthodox churches in the world! No pictures could be taken inside, so we took A LOT outside!




So you may or may not have heard that that there has been some unrest here.  We walked past parliment, and the spot were protesters, protest.  Here are some pictures of their signs....very interesting!

We finished off our long journey with a sandwich. You can eat VERY cheaply in this country if you leave our hotel! We paid 9.10 leva for 3 sandwiches and 2 drinks. (you get 1.43 leva per dollar at the airport; we hope to get money exchanged on Monday and get an even better deal :))
I had one of these sandwiches with Grace on my first trip to Bulgaria. It is on pita bread, we chose chicken, then their is cabbage, french fries, tomatoes and cucumber sauce on it. It is very good, I recommend it. Cheap and cultural and it hasn't made me ill so, try it!


So this concludes our Sofia cultural experience this afternoon, we don't know for sure what we will do tomorrow but we hope to visit a mountain that is very near here! So check back for more exciting travel pictures and stories and in a few more posts....you will get to see the reason we came all this way!! SIMON, we are coming for you on Monday, bright and EARLY!