Day 2 Sofia

6 hours sleep on the plane Monday night, and 4 hours sleep in bed Tuesday, waking at 1.30am and unable to get back to sleep. It's now 8.40pm in Bulgaria, 2.30am in Perth. I'm in bed, body weary but not sleepy. I don't think I'm jet lagged. I'm just time confused.

We had boots on bitumen shortly after 7am in search of breakfast as last night's dinner was just instant noodles. The restaurants along the main street of Sofia, Vitosha Boulevard, just 50m from our front door were thronging and we did not feel like being part of that. Breakfast was at a quaint little bakery which had tables only by the street. So in 2⁰C, we sat eating a Bulgarian sausage roll literally a sausage in a bread roll, some walnut and jam pastry, washed down with coffee. Our 600 fill down puffer coat kept us snug.
A most uplifting and blessed morning followed as we seem to have attended mass sung in 3 churches. Alexander Nevsky Cathedral was the first. What was most obvious upon entrance was the huge space in front of the altar as there were no pews. Beautiful sung hymns in acapella sounding like Gregorian Chants, by just 3 men. We visited St Sofia Church,
a geographic points marker building for Bulgaria, Poland and Hungary,
St Nicholas the Wonder Worker Church and St George Rotunda Church before our second breakfast at another bakery selling banista. Ducked into a hotel to use the conveniences then we were on a hunt for camera shops because to replace Ruby's deteriorating camera strap All this was done before meeting the waking tour at 11am we've we learnt interesting quirky facts about Sofia. For instance, Sofia was not named after the main statue that stands in the middle of the city but was named after a church, St Sofia Church. This church was built by the same architect who built the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul, and was known as Little Hagia Sofia. In 1825 the communist seperatists sponsored by Russia assassinated a prominent general to lure the military and political elite into the St. Nedelya Church where ia bomb was planted at the general's funeral. Tsar Boris III escaped death because he was late. As a result, Bulgarians are always late.
We found an authentic Bulgarian food cafeteria after the walking tour that was very reasonably priced. Three name of the cafeteria was written in cerialic text so we can never find it again.
To top our crazy walking day, we visited the National History Museum and spent 2½ hrs looking at Bulgaria from 16BC to 1986.
Ruby wanted to add the National Cultural Centre at the end but input my foot down and said no.
Our total distance walked today was 16.6 km.Read more