Chronicles on the road: Sofia (Day 3)

After some delay, here are our impressions of our third (and final) day spent in Sofia:

Published in

Eastern Chronicles

5 min readNov 23, 2015

Our darling Sofia experienced some pretty weird mood swings yesterday. The morning started off (almost) on schedule; we had breakfast, packed up our stuff, and prepared to head for “The Bells.” Although the sun was shining and the weather seemed sweet, the moment we left the hotel we were almost knocked over by a heavy wind. However, our minds were made up: we had to see the bells and, even more, we had to take a look at Sofia from Vitosha Mountain.

The Bells Monument is just outside the city. The first stone was placed there in August 1979 to celebrate children’s hopes for a peaceful and prosperous future. The construction does look a little too Communist for my taste, but I did appreciate the global participation in the project. Bells from all over the world are there; you can even ring them, and believe me, between the wind whooshing and the bells banging, the whole vibe that’s created there is just…well, not like anything I’ve ever experienced. Unfortunately, the weather chased us away sooner than we’d hoped; so, followed by black clouds and a pretty rainbow, we set out for Vitosha Mountain.

Now, maybe it’s just me, but a ski resort with no snow is simply a creepy place; it seemed like I was trespassing on a grumpy man’s territory, always expecting him to jump out from behind a tree and yell. But, hooray for us, no one did, so we got to see Sofia from above. And the view is absolutely breathtaking! I realized that Sofia is a whole lot larger than I’d previously thought. If it hadn’t been for the drizzle, maybe we would’ve stayed longer, but, sadly, we had to return to our base camp. — Alexandra Dragos

On Friday and Saturday, the weather in Sofia was simply perfect. It was almost 20 C each day — quite an interesting temperature for November, isn’t it? Well, things changed dramatically on Sunday. Nature seemed to be raging at us, blowing such a frightening wind that I got nervous driving to the Bells Monument and nervous once more up on Vitosha Mountain, fearing that a tree would collapse on the car at any moment.

Even so, this ‘adventure’ had its good parts too: that raging wind was warm at least, and I had the opportunity to admire one of the most beautiful rainbows over Sofia. Ciprian, our guide and friend from Sofia, said that we were very lucky to have such nice whether during our stay in the city, even given the wind on Sunday. “Usually, it’s freezing cold up here,” he said, “and you never know when it’s going to suddenly start raining.”

But enough about the weather; I’d better tell you about Sofia. After spending the weekend there, I came to the conclusion that if one really wants to experience the essence of Eastern Europe, then they should start with the capital of Bulgaria. Sofia is exactly how I like to describe this part of Europe: with great potential, but not mainstream yet; more affordable than any Western European capital and authentic too — even though it is the capital of Bulgaria. Although Sofia is an urban area, people preserve their traditions and historical heritage; some were even wearing traditional folk costumes, and others proudly practiced ancient customs on the streets. From now on, I will always say ‘yes’ to a road trip to Sofia. I’m also very eager to go back and explore the rest of Bulgaria! And so, my favorite Eastern Chronicles dictum: “A traveler can’t say they’ve really visited Eastern Europe if they haven’t been to Sofia.” — Alexandra Palconi

This was the last Eastern Chronicles roadtrip for 2015. The next one will happen in January, 2016. But stay close and follow us, because you haven’t heard all our roadtrip stories yet!