Lines Currently Closed

Availability search

CHECK IN date 

CHECK OUT date 

OR Number of Nights

Number of Rooms 

Quick Links
Sofia Map
General Info
Getting Around
Group Bookings
Booking Advice
Swimming Pools


3 Star Hotels ***

1 Star Hotels *

5 Star Hotels *****

2 Star Hotels **

4 Star Hotels ****

Sofia - General Information and Sights

The City

When you first arrive in the outskirts of Sofia the anonymous apartment blocks that loom on either side of the road, their balconies festooned with clothes, can create a slightly dispiriting impression. But then you reach the city centre and all your deepening prejudices about post-Communist Eastern Europe are demolished. Wide, chestnut lined boulevards stretch before you. The Stalinist accommodation gives way to traditional Bulgarian architecture. This is predominantly early 20th century neo-classical. But there are also many intriguing survivors from much earlier eras. The Roman Rotunda, tucked behind the Sheraton hotel, was originally built when Sofia was part of the Byzantine Empire, then transformed into the early Christian church of St George in the 4th century AD. And, next to the public baths, there is the Turkish Banya Bashi mosque, a "Sultan-style" edifice, which dates from 1576, when the city was under Ottoman rule.

The most stunning example of traditional Bulgarian architecture is the Alexander Nevsky Church. Built in the neo-Byzantine style, it was completed in 1924 to commemorate the quarter of a million Russian soldiers who died helping to liberate Bulgaria from the Turks. Fifty metres tall, it's essentially a cluster of copper domes sitting on top of one another, crowned by a gold-plated nave. The "huge condiment set" impression, which strikes you when you first set eyes on it, is hard to overcome. But there's no denying the sense of awe that settles, unbidden, upon you once you step into its vast interior. The altar and the patriarch's throne are sculpted in multi-coloured Italian marble and the crypt houses a collection of masterpieces of Bulgarian icon-painting, some of which date from the end of the 9th century.

Near to the Alexander Nevsky, in the City Garden, lies Sofia's other great emblem, the National Theatre. It was built in 1907, in neo-Classical style, and its façade is a beautiful confection of white pillars, red brickwork and gold-inlaid carving. Between April and October the area of the City Garden in front of the theatre is taken over by a vast outdoor café. You'll also see older citizens perched on benches playing chess. If you were beamed down to this spot on a summer night and found yourself sitting at one of the café tables - music drifting through the air, fountains juggling glowing water, impeccably stylish couples wandering by - you'd think you were in Prague, or even Vienna. You'd never imagine it was Sofia. The atmosphere is familiarly European, but overlaid with something more exotic, more Oriental.

Food & Drink

A similar mixture of the familiar and the exotic characterises the food in Sofia. Bulgarians love their stews, which they cook in terracotta pots. The most celebrated is kavarma, a spicy meat stew made from pork and veal, which tastes very like goulash. In a traditional Bulgarian restaurant you'll most often be served with shopska salad as a starter. This contains chopped tomatoes, cucumbers, onions and peppers, and is liberally sprinkled with feta cheese. It should be eaten with a glass of rakiya, a trouncingly potent spirit usually made from grapes, plums or apricots.

Almost equally potent is Melnik wine. People who know nothing else about Bulgaria know that it produces a variety of robust, affordable wines. But Melnik wine is something else. They serve it on tap in the Happy Bar, part of a nationwide chain of theme pubs that exude a lot more charm than the British equivalents. Consume two glasses and you will be suffused with a blissful sense of well being. After the third glass you'll have to be restrained from jumping over the bar and embracing the cask.

Sofia's Culture

Magnificent architecture and volcanic alcohol aside, Sofia's other great asset is the beauty of its citizens. In no city on earth will you seen so many stunning people. The women come in two basic physical types: fair haired, blue eyed, ethereally pretty Slavs and dark haired, black eyed, sullenly sensual Bulgars. The men - no less striking - are swarthy and vaguely pugilistic, in a Marlon Brando sort of way. Both sexes look utterly different from most people's mental image of the former Communist Bloc's inhabitants, in which brutal haircuts, grey pallor and ill-fitting clothes figured prominently.

But then that's the greatest delight of Sofia: its capacity to surprise you. Instead of a dour place, irretrievably brutalized by its Communist past, you'll find a mellow, cosmopolitan, frequently beautiful city. If you visit it - even briefly - you won't be able to ignore its problems, but you'll be enchanted by its unique character and want to wish its soulful, captivating people well.