I'm leaving Sofia for Plovdiv today, another town in Bulgaria. This little capital has really grown on me and I'm kind of sad to leave it and my host.
Sofia has multiple museums and churches and cathedrals and mosques but really who wants to go from attraction to attraction all the time? In my three full days here I managed to not visit a single museum, and that's fine by me. I've been walking around the city visiting different shops, hanging out in cafes and bookstores, meeting my host for lunch and cooking dinner together.
Yesterday, at the suggestion of my host, I did do something touristy and attended the Free Sofia Tour. I seriously think every city should have an equivalent. It's a non-profit organization staffed by volunteers who take time out of their schedule to guide people around. They don't skimp either, the tour lasted two and half hours! And I learned so much about the history (although I won't retain even 10% of what they covered) and factoids about the city. Sofia means wise but as the guide said, the city isn't wise when it comes to decision making. They have paved and built over the pre-existing Byzantine and Roman cities without making effort to preserve much of the remains. However, there are a couple of underground sections where people can walk on the original Roman roads and see the structure under the city. Also, the city is gifted with numerous thermal springs but unlike Budapest for example, there is not really a bathhouse.
After the tour I met Veneta and went to a Turkish restaurant for lunch - a little preview of what's to come next week. It was amazing :) She's a huge Istanbul fan as well and has been several times. Then for dinner, we made empanadas for a Spanish themed party she's attending tonight. Sadly I won't be around to go but at least I got to sample the food. That was supposed to be dinner but based on my experience here, dinner usually isn't until 10pm so I ate a pre-dinner dinner snack around 7pm. Thank goodness I did because the empanadas took a lot longer than expected. We finally sat down to eat at 12:30am! But they were delicioso :)
So now I bid farewell to Sofia and will take a short bus ride to Plovdiv.
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