Sofia - Election and Eurovision Day

We had a night flight from Adelaide which was 15 minutes late into Doha, so our transfer was done at a trot. We made it, and took off on time,then arrived in Sofia 20 minutes early.

Sofia Airport is reminiscent of Adelaide before it was upgraded, quite small and tired - except they have an underground service into the city - and it's a bargain at 1.60 Lev (A$1.28).

We arrived at the main station, Serdica, and walked 10 mintutes to our hotel. After a quick freshen up (and catch up with the early election results), we headed out for a walk.

First stop was a phone shop for a local SIM card (10 Lev/A$8 for 6GB data for 14 days), which we tested by finding a few caches.

Sofia is an old city, with some beautiful buildings, but many are badly in need of repair, as are many of the footpaths. The trams run down many streets and seem to effortlessly share the road without any traffic lights - the cars just stop as the tram comes whizzing across their path!

We had a mid afternoon break for pizza and beer, then wandered down the main shopping strip, Vitosha Boulevard, which was still in full swing at 6pm. The view of the mountains in the background was the enduring image of the day, and not what we were expecting in Sofia!

On the way back to the hotel we stopped at a supermarket for supplies, then stayed in to watch Eurovision live. We had some trouble finding a station that was broadcasting it, as the Bulgarian national broadcaster decided against it for cost reasons, but fortunately the hotel had a large selection of international stations ☺Read more