Sofia: what to see, where to stay and how to get around
Within about three hundred metres of each other in the centre of Sofia stand an Orthodox cathedral, a Catholic cathedral, a mosque and a synagogue — and the locals call it the Square of Tolerance. It is not a monument or a project; the four buildings simply ended up there over four hundred years and nobody moved them. The synagogue is the largest Sephardic one in Europe, and almost all of Bulgaria’s fifty thousand Jews survived the war. Two hours, flat.
A short history of Sofia
The Thracian Serdi tribe lived here by the hot springs, and the Romans turned the place into the city of Serdica. The Emperor Constantine was especially fond of it and, according to tradition, said of it, 'Serdica is my Rome'. In 809 Khan Krum captured it and it became part of Bulgaria under the name Sredets. The name Sofia comes from the 6th-century Church of Hagia Sophia, which still stands in the city today. In 1382 the city was taken by the Ottomans and remained in their hands for almost five hundred years. It was liberated after the Russo-Turkish War in 1878, and in 1879 it was chosen as the capital of Bulgaria, although it was then a small town. In 1909 the Central Synagogue was opened here, one of the largest Sephardi synagogues in Europe, and in 1943 the deportation of Bulgaria's Jews to the death camps was stopped.
The ten best sights in Sofia
1Alexander Nevsky CathedralFree, and the crypt with the icons is 6 lev
2Boyana Church10 lev, 10 minutes inside at a time, and the frescoes are from 1259
3Banya Bashi MosqueFree, from 1576, and it was built over a hot spring
4Sofia Synagogue5 lev, from 1909, and the largest Sephardic synagogue in Europe
5Sveta NedelyaFree, and the roof was blown off it by a bomb in 1925
6Russian ChurchFree, gold domes, and people leave notes in the crypt
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7Sveti Sedmochislenitsi
Free, and it was a mosque until 1901
8National Museum of History10 lev, out in Boyana, and the Thracian gold is the reason
9Archaeological Museum10 lev, in a 1474 mosque, and the Thracian masks are in it
10National Art Gallery6 lev, in the former royal palace on the main square
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What is an audio walk?
Tours in Sofia →A guide in your headphones: open the walk on our site, walk from stop to stop, and at each one your phone tells its story. No guide, no group, and free. This is the first walk in Sofia:
Free walking tours in Sofia
Four faiths in one square
Within about three hundred metres of each other in the centre of Sofia stand an Orthodox cathedral, a Catholic cathedral, a mosque and a synagogue — and the locals call it the Square of Tolerance. It is not a monument or a project; the four buildings simply ended up there over four hundred years and nobody moved them. The synagogue is the largest Sephardic one in Europe, and almost all of Bulgaria’s fifty thousand Jews survived the war. Two hours, flat.
- Sveta Nedelya · On the sixteenth of April 1925 communists blew the roof off this church during a funeral, hoping to kill the king and the government in one go — a hundred and fifty people died and the king was not among them, having arrived late. It is the deadliest attack on a place of worship in Europe before the war.
- Banya Bashi Mosque · Built in 1576 by the architect Mimar Sinan, the same man who built the great mosques of Istanbul, and it stands directly over a hot spring — the name means "many baths". Steam still rises from the vents at the base in winter.
- Sofia Synagogue · The largest Sephardic synagogue in Europe, opened in 1909, and its chandelier weighs two and a quarter tonnes. In 1943 Bulgaria refused to deport its own Jews — the parliament, the church and the public stopped the trains — and almost all fifty thousand survived, the only such case in the Axis.
- Mineral Baths · Sofia sits on hot springs, which is why the Romans built here at all — Serdica’s water comes out of the ground at forty-six degrees. The taps on the side of the bath house are free and public, and people queue with five-litre bottles every morning.
- Alexander Nevsky Cathedral · Built between 1882 and 1912 as a thank-you to the two hundred thousand Russian soldiers who died freeing Bulgaria from the Ottomans. It holds five thousand people, the domes are gold-plated, and the crypt below is the national collection of icons.
- Sveti Sedmochislenitsi · The building was an Ottoman mosque of 1578, then an arsenal, then a prison, and became a church in 1901. It is dedicated to the seven saints who created the Cyrillic alphabet — the script more than two hundred million people write in today, and which was invented in Bulgaria.
A Roman city under the metro
When Sofia dug its metro in the 2000s it ran straight into Serdica — the Roman city that stood here, which Constantine the Great liked so much he considered making it his capital instead of Byzantium. "Serdica is my Rome", he is supposed to have said. Rather than clear the ruins the city built the station around them, so you now change trains beside a fourth-century street. Two hours, and much of it is below ground level.
- Serdica ruins · Two main Roman streets, the walls of eight buildings, a bath house and a basilica, all exposed and roofed in glass between 2010 and 2016. The metro runs through the middle of it, which means the commute passes a street built in the fourth century.
- Largo · Three buildings in Stalinist classicism, finished in 1955 on a quarter that Allied bombing had flattened in 1944. The red star on the top of the central one was taken down in 1990 by a crane in front of a crowd, and it is now in the Museum of Socialist Art.
- Archaeological Museum · Housed in a mosque built in 1474, the oldest building still standing in the city. The Thracians left no written language, so everything known about them comes from objects — gold masks, a chariot with the horses buried beside it, and a burial where a king was interred with his dogs.
- National Art Gallery · The building was the royal palace and before that the Ottoman governor’s residence — Vasil Levski, the man who organised the revolution, was held in its cellar before he was hanged in 1873. The palace became a gallery in 1946 when the monarchy was abolished.
- Sofia University · Two brothers from Macedonia left their entire fortune to build it on condition their names were on it, and both are carved into the facade holding the building between them. It opened in 1888 with forty-three students, all of them men.
- Eagles’ Bridge · Four bronze eagles from 1891, by the same Czech architect who did the Lions’ Bridge at the other end of the boulevard. Every major protest in Sofia since 1989 has ended at this junction, and the eagles are where the crowd stops.
A mountain inside the city
Vitosha rises to 2,290 metres and part of it is inside the municipal boundary of Sofia — it is the only European capital with a mountain of that size within its own limits, and city bus 66 takes you to the foot for a flat fare. Bulgarians go up it for the day in both summer and winter, and there is a river of granite boulders on one flank that was left by a glacier. Half a day, and the last part is walking.
- Boyana Church · Tiny, and the frescoes inside were painted in 1259 — eighty years before Giotto. The faces are individual portraits with expression and depth, which nobody in Europe was painting yet, and only eight people may be inside at once for ten minutes because of the humidity.
- National Museum of History · It is in the former residence of Todor Zhivkov, who ran Bulgaria for thirty-five years — the longest of any Eastern bloc leader. The Panagyurishte treasure is here: six kilos of Thracian gold vessels found in 1949 by three brothers digging clay for a brick factory.
- Boyana Waterfall · Fifteen metres, about an hour’s walk up from the church through beech forest, and it freezes solid in winter into a column that climbers go up. The path is the start of the main route onto the mountain.
- Zlatni Mostove · A river of granite boulders two kilometres long running down the mountainside, left when the ice retreated — the water runs underneath and you can hear it but not see it. The name means golden bridges, from the yellow lichen on the rock.
- Dragalevtsi Monastery · Founded in the 1340s, abandoned after the Ottoman conquest and refounded in 1476 — it was one of the few that kept Bulgarian manuscripts copying through the occupation. Vasil Levski hid here in the 1860s while organising the revolution.
- Cherni Vrah · The summit, 2,290 metres, and the stone hut on top has been a weather station since 1935. Vitosha was declared the first nature park in the Balkans in 1934, which is why a mountain this close to a capital was never built on.
Getting to Sofia and getting around
- Sofia Airport · Metro line 4 to the centre, 20 minutes, 1.60 lev
- Central Station · A 1974 concrete hall, and the metro is under it
- Central Bus Station · Beside the railway station, and buses to all the Balkans
- Serdika · Where the two metro lines cross, and Roman ruins around it
Cheap eats in Sofia
Eight counters where Sofia eats standing. Banitsa is the breakfast — filo pastry layered with white cheese and egg, sold from bakery windows for about two lev and eaten out of a paper with ayran. A full lunch in a traditional mehana is about fifteen lev, which makes this one of the cheapest capitals in the European Union.
- Central Market Hall · Open 7 to 10, and the basement is the cheap floor
- Zhenski Pazar · Open every day, and the fruit is a third of the shops
- Shtastliveca · On Vitosha Boulevard, and a main course is about 20 lev
- Supa Star · About 6 lev a bowl, and lunch only
- Skaptoburger · A window with no seats, and the queue goes round the corner
- Cosmos · Bulgarian cooking taken seriously, and the wine list is local
- Graf Ignatiev · The flower stalls and the bakery windows along it
- Mineral Baths taps · Free mineral water at 46 degrees, and bring a bottle
Museums in Sofia
- National Museum of History · 10 lev, out in Boyana, and bus 64 goes there
- Archaeological Museum · 10 lev, in a 1474 mosque, and the oldest building in Sofia
- National Art Gallery · 6 lev, in the old royal palace, and free on the last Monday
- Museum of Socialist Art · 6 lev, metro to G.M. Dimitrov, and the yard is the point
- Earth and Man Museum · 6 lev, closed Mondays, and the dark room is the best
- Sofia City Art Gallery · Free, in the City Garden, and the shows change monthly
- Boyana Church · 10 lev, eight people at a time, and ten minutes inside
- Natural History Museum · 10 lev, from 1889, and the oldest museum in the Balkans
Nature and day trips near Sofia
Sofia is the only European capital with a 2,290-metre mountain partly inside its own boundary, and a city bus goes to the foot of it. Vitosha was made the first nature park in the Balkans in 1934, which is why nobody ever built on it.
- Vitosha · Bus 66 from Hladilnika, a city ticket, 40 minutes
- Cherni Vrah · 2,290 metres, and a weather station on top since 1935
- Zlatni Mostove · Free, and bus 63 goes to within a walk of it
- Boyana Waterfall · 15 metres, an hour up from the church, and free
- Borisova Gradina · Free, 300 hectares, and laid out by a Swiss gardener in 1884
- South Park · Free, and the part Sofia actually uses on a Sunday
- Seven Rila Lakes · Two hours out, and the chairlift is 20 lev return
- Rila Monastery · Free, two hours out, and the frescoes are outside the walls
Things to do in Sofia with kids
- Earth and Man Museum · 6 lev, a dark room of glowing minerals, and giant crystals
- Natural History Museum · 10 lev, four floors of animals, and from 1889
- Borisova Gradina · Free, playgrounds, a lake, and an observatory in it
- Vitosha · Snow from December, and a city bus gets you to it
- Museum of Socialist Art · 6 lev, a yard of enormous statues, and room to run
- South Park · Free, and bikes and scooters for hire at the gates
Live music in Sofia
- Ivan Vazov National Theatre · From 15 lev, and the garden in front is free
- Sofia Opera and Ballet · From 20 lev, and the top tier is the cheap one
- Bulgaria Hall · From 20 lev, and the acoustics are the best in the country
- National Palace of Culture · Thirteen halls under one roof, and concerts most nights
- Studio 5 · Jazz and small concerts under the Palace of Culture
- Vasil Levski Stadium · The national stadium, inside Borisova Gradina
Nightlife in Sofia
Rakia is the thing to drink and it is not a shot — it is sipped slowly with a salad before a meal, never after, and asking for it with dessert marks you out immediately. Most of it is made at home from plums or grapes, and a bar will have a dozen from different regions.
- Raketa Rakia Bar · The socialist-era theme is done well, and 50 rakias on the list
- Vitosha Boulevard · Terraces the whole length, and it stays out until late
- City Garden · People sit on the grass with a bottle, and it is permitted
- Lozenets · Where Sofia drinks rather than visitors, and cheaper
- Studentski Grad · A whole quarter of student bars, and nothing starts before midnight
- Graf Ignatiev · The bars behind it fill after ten, and a beer is 4 lev
Frequently asked questions about Sofia
What is there to see in Sofia?
The top sights in Sofia are Alexander Nevsky Cathedral, Boyana Church and Banya Bashi Mosque. The full list on this page has 10 sights, each with a photo and a short note.
How many days do you need in Sofia?
Three to four days are enough to see the best of Sofia without rushing, including at least one walking tour.
Is there a free walking tour in Sofia?
Yes. sleepntrip has 3 free audio walks in Sofia, with no guide and no group: your phone tells the story at every stop. The first one: Four faiths in one square.
How do you get to Sofia and get around?
The main ways are Sofia Airport, Central Station and Central Bus Station. Full details are in the transport section on this page.
Where to stay in Sofia, and for how much?
sleepntrip shows only rooms in Sofia that meet nine conditions: a good location, high guest scores, cleanliness, and a price of up to $80 a night for two. Pick your dates and see what is free.
Looking for a hotel in Sofia for your dates?
Only rooms that meet nine conditions, up to $80 a night.