In order to see a city, we reckon you have to get out and about on foot. Leaving the house/Hardie Hobbit Hole is also a requirement as it turns out. We figured we’d skip the metro on the way into the city as it was only 1 stop and it’s almost a kilometre to actually reach our local metro station. In hindsight walking 2.8 km to get to the start of a 2 hour walking tour might have been somewhat ambitious - but it was a stunningly sunny day, all the snow had disappeared and hey, it seemed like a good idea at the time.

It was a cracking walk in along Vitosha Boulevard and we eventually arrived at the beginning of the pedestrianised section of Sophia’s modern shopping street. At this point we cranked it right down to dawdle speed - with 45 minutes in hand until the Free Sofia Walking Tour began. Having been in the countryside for almost 3 months (albeit with regular train trips into Rome), we were starving for some solid city walking, bright lights, shops and things to see. First shop we saw was actually a posh Italian bath products shop that I’d been meaning to visit online - so that was an easy one. We stocked up on samples and will be back another day for something bubbly and exotic to take to Serbia. Meanwhile we scoped out the souvenir shops (must remember to add postcards to our shopping list). Before we knew it, it was coming up to 11 am and we joined the weekend city break/Ryanair hordes and were allocated a tour guide.

First off, whilst it’s fair to say we did have our suspicions, you generally don’t know just how much you don’t know. For instance, we had no idea that Bulgaria was so old - 7000 years! And has been a continuous country for a very long time (unlike say Italy which was only united relatively recently). Also - Bulgaria is very proud of having invented the Cyrillic alphabet - which the Russians later adopted! Sofia may not have rivers/lakes or oceans nearby, but water is not far away at all as the city, once known as Serdika, sits on geothermal waters. It’s a crying shame but in the 1980s, when people finally started having private bathrooms in their homes, the glorious public baths of Sofia were allowed to fall into rack and ruin. Having visited the amazing public baths in Budapest, Hungary where you can while a day away whilst par-boiling yourself, this is just criminal. The public baths building is now the museum of Sofia (with a wing set aside for a very posh health spa to eventually go into business). Outside we had the chance to drink the 40 degree mineral water from the public fountains - which tasted fine, no sulphur at all. Apparently, even when it’s minus 20 degrees (er... last week, with the 2 feet of snow...) this fountain continues to run - incredible. The geothermal waters have been a hit throughout history and when the Romans were here (face it, they were the virus of antiquity... everywhere), they used the waters in their bathhouses and also for their famous underfloor/hypocaust heating systems.

Speaking of Romans, Sofia now knows an huge amount about that era in its history because of their metro system - of which they are justifiably proud as it’s modern, spotless and clean. It did however take 30 years to build. Not because they were slack, corrupt or incompetent. (That’s our guide talking, not me.) Nope. When they started to dig up the centre of the city 30 years ago they came across the medieval ruins from around 1400. The archeologists moved in, troweled, dug, dusted and catalogued and eventually gave the go ahead to dig and build. Then they found the Roman ruins a bit deeper down. Then the archeologists moved in again... Serdika metro station in the centre of town (where the 2 lines meet) is now a portal to the past - preserved ruins everywhere including the city gates from Roman times. As we said... so much we didn’t know about Bulgaria.

To be honest, there’s probably stuff that’s passed us by simply because of their famous Cyrillic language. We are well used to deciphering anything Latin based by now and can fight our way through a bit of French, Romanian, Italian and Spanish - however Cyrillic leaves us cold. We are therefore newly converted to the benefits of the Google Translate app on the iPhone... Like a toy from Doctor Who, being able to hold the phone near any printed document and see the letters magically translate on the screen from Bulgarian to English is pretty much witch craft in our opinion. We weren’t actually that au fait with it on one of our first supermarket shopping trips... Saw a stand with wine, beer etc on special. Needed some white wine for a risotto. Saw a bottle of white wine (even had grapes etched on the front!) About €3. 10% alcohol. OK. That’ll do. ‘Twas only later that day when we nipped back to the supermarket for the rest of the ‘heavy and liquid’ section of the list did we visit the actually booze section and find our ‘white wine’ smack amongst the Rakia (that’s fruit brandy, in this case made with grapes) and the 10% under strong white light turned out to be 40%... still very drinkable mind you - would have been a heck of a risotto. By no means a disaster - but started using the iPhone and the Google Translate app a bit more after that. However. It doesn’t always work and it never seems to work with handwriting - like you’d find at a fruit and vege market for instance.

This leads us on to Zhenski Pasar or ‘the Ladies Market’. In the city, between Lions’ Bridge, Pirotska street (the old pedestrianised shopping street) and Serdika station, Zhenski was once old, grotty and altogether sketchy. Apparently. Since they swept out the illegal sellers of all things fake and rebuilt all the shops and stalls it’s great - and during the week we seem to be the only English speaking tourists around anyway - definitely not touristy. We’ve been a few times now and splurged about A$10/€6 on fresh products just the other day. Wanted a couple of cucumbers and saw a sign for 2 for 1 leva... Having handed the vendor 2 choice cucumbers she proceeded to fill a basket. Protests aside... turned out it was 2KG of cucumbers for 1 leva (thats around 50 euro cents or A$0.80. Luckily it was 4 lettuces for 1 leva also. Certainly been a big week for salads since we went shopping.

Obviously one can’t go traipsing around markets for a couple of hours without sustenance (and it’s not like we were going to start on the cucumbers at that stage), so luckily we found a back-street bakery down a lane way just away from the main bazaar streets - brilliant! Been there a few times now too as we can both have lunch for less than A$2 - bureks and small pizzas are their specialty.

Well that is Sofia so far (once more). In just one week’s time we’ll be en route to Belgrade, Serbia. At the moment we’ve had a few days of 21 degrees... in a week’s time the mini-beast (from the East) is due once more and it will be 2 degrees and snowing. It’s trite but true that the only certainty in life is change (unless of course you’re taking a dodgy taxi...)