Sofia - Random Stuff

Just random stuff:

This was the bathroom at a restaurant we ate at. It only had 1 toilet.

A weird soviet-style sculpture in a park but fenced off...?

Funny sign. The burger is saying, "I want to be inside you".

Bulgaria LOVES their yogurt and other dairy products. As a dairy lover myself, i was quite content there. I found beet kefir!! It was soooooooo yummy!!

I don't know...i just thought this was funny.

Cool sculpture in the metro station.

Sofia - Street Art

Sofia had some pretty cool street art. Poftim!

Sofia - Balkan Bites Food Tour

Another tour we went on was a Balkan Bites Food Tour. It is called Balkan Bites rather than Bulgarian Bites because so much of Bulgaria's and Eastern Europe's history is a hodge-podge of various cultures and people, that it's hard to differentiate one from another. After living 2+ years in Moldova, i found that to be true. So many of the foods we ate were very similar to traditional Moldovan foods as well, with only slight variations.

Below is where we met for the food tour. It is a sculpture of one of Bulgaria's fallen, yet beloved leaders, who apparently took an axe to the head and died a few days later from infection.

Our first stop was Supa Star, a soup restaurant. Like Moldova, soup is a very important meal in Bulgaria and eaten everyday. In the summer, a popular soup is cold and made from yogurt and dill. 

It was DELICIOUS!

Next we went to an underground place that served savory and sweet pastries. In Moldova they're called Placinta, but i forget what their Bulgarian name is. 

And they were delicious as well! We got to try the one stuffed with Bulgarian cheese...one of my favorites in Moldova too (except with Moldovan cheese, which is very similar). Mama-G made them all the time! :o]

Next we went to a hip little restaurant that is vegan. It was also really good. We got to try 2 different breads with different toppings.

This restaurant was our guide's favorite. It's so adorable!

We tried 3 different Bulgarian cheese spreads on bite-sized bread pieces.

And, of course, Bulgarian wine. Here is our guide with our wine samples.

This was another tour we did. It was a Bulgarian culture tour. Our guide took us to a tea shop and we got to sample tea and jam made from roses. That was all the shop sold...everything was made from a very specific type of rose. I usually don't like very floral types of food, but this was so good...not over-powering, very light and subtly sweet.

Our last night there we went on a pub crawl. One of the places we went to was an old barn with no electricity. It used to be invite only, but has just recently opened it's doors to the public...if you can find it.

It was completely lit with candles. All the melted wax was so cool! 

Sofia, Bulgaria - Free Walking Tour

Sofia, Bulgaria was AWESOME! For a capital city it's pretty small and so quaint and cute! There are quite a few walking tours (free and paid) that happen daily at different times, which we took advantage of. The day we arrived (after sleeping overnight in the Sofia airport because we landed at like 1am) we went to our hostel (Hostel Mostel, which was really great also!) and immediately went on a walking tour. Below is one of many beautiful churches in Sofia.

This church was part of the "old town". They've built modern Sofia all around it, so it's an interesting time capsule.

When they were recently excavating to build a new road, they unearthed what you see below...a whole city! Rather than tear it down and continue with their plans of road building, they are preserving it and redesigned the road plans to go around it. 

This beautiful building used to be a bath house. There are natural mineral springs underneath that used to be used for the baths. Currently it is a museum about the history of Sofia, but according to our tour guide, there are talks of making it into a bath house again.

Here's me drinking the mineral water that constantly flows out of a fountain in front of the building. There are these natural springs all over the city that people bring bottles to fill up. This particular spring was warm.

Here's another spring fountain...it was cold and refreshing.

Sofia has so many wonderful parks! This one was very popular with people playing live music (jazz...reminded me of New Orleans), sitting out of cafes, lying on the grass, strolling the grounds...it was very nice.

This used to be a palace, but now it's an art school.

Soviet art in a park.

This is Sofia Church...what the city of Sofia is named after.

If you look closely in the tree, you can see a bell. That's the church's bell...in a tree!

Another beautiful church.