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Hotel Class: 
4 Stars - 10 Opinions
1404 Sofia, 83 Bulgaria Blvd, Sofia 1404, Bulgaria
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of people enjoy staying here
10 Opinions
Mitesh apartment
Kohinoor restaurant interior
National Art Gallery
Russian Church of St. Nicolas
Hi
I am going to Sofia for 2days soon. I read some people here had problems with ATM's. My card is generally accepted abroad but is it better to bring cash? Day one I would like to go shopping for some ethnic/traditional goods, where is the best place for that? On the second day I would like to visit Mount Vitosha. Not to ski, just to go up by cable car or chairlift and have a hot chocolate and look at the scenery! What is the best route up for this? As I heard there is more than one way. Any advice would be appreciated. Thank you.
I had no problem with ATM's in Sofia
Are you going to be in Sofia only? Tourist type goods are more expensive there - and ethnic goods are considered tourist-type goods.
In the smaller villages people make them for themselves only, but second hand might be available.
In Kazanluk, for instance, I saw some beautiful traditional clothing for about 2/3 of the price that was being asked in Sofia.
Thanks for the info re ATM's. Yes I will probably just be in Sofia. I don't really have the time or confidence to travel around. I don't mind if things are a little more expensive. I'm from the UK and went to Poland last year and found the tourist souvenirs were still fairly cheap. My hotel is on Patriarh Evtimii Blvd, if that helps with directions etc.
Subways are found throughout the city centre, their main purpose is obviously as a way to cross busy roads and to provide an entrance to the metro. They also contain public phones and toilets as well as souvenir shops, grocery stores and eateries.
Sofia is now a busy city with a tempo of life comparable to many Western cities. It is a place, where one can find practically everything, starting with finding old medals, pins, badges and other kinds of memorabilia at the little market next to the Alexander Nevsky Cathedral and ending with buying pirated CD's for 15 leva (about 7,50 EUR) from the book market in Slaveikov square (although I am not sure how possible that one would be since the police keep hunting down the sellers and confiscate thousands of illegal CD's each time)! It is very hard to describe everything that you could possibly do there. In my opinion, the options are unlimited! I personally enjoy sitting at a cafe next to the National Palace of Culture, or someplace else and sipping my drink for hours and hours, in the company of friends and enjoying the atmosphere. There was this great Bulgarian poet who had a famous saying: 'Unless I drink my coffee for at least two hours, I feel like something's wrong with me!' You go to Bulgaria and you can see that lifestyle, you can see how much people appreciate the company of a friend (even a stranger quite often) and what it means to them to have quality time. Got me there! That's a really hard one! I guess I remember too many things, so that I can narrow it down to the best of all time. But what I love the most is the humanity of the people and all the unwritten laws that exist in practice and are followed to make people's lives better. For example, in the city transport people would punch their ticket and if no inspector checked them, they would leave it on their seat, or hand it to someone when getting down so that someone else could benefit from it. If you ask a bus driver to stop somewhere, where on graphic he is not supposed to and politely explain him that you got lost, he will open the doors for you. It's the little things like these that I really enjoy and that I haven't been able to encounter anywhere else.
RESTAURANT: Service is included in the bill. Small tips are perhaps expected. However, SMALL is the operative word (American travellers, pls think MINISCULE). You can round it up to the nearest half or full LEV – which generally means up to 50 cents. If you are ABSOLUTELY EXTATIC, and you have racked up a bill, you can leave a few leva.
The basic rationale is that if you leave a large tip, you are bound to be someone who can be fleeced without much anguish ;-)
BIG/CHAIN HOTEL: If you are and woud like to leave something for the maid, it'll be good to do it personally (then you ensure the money ends as expected).
PRIVATE HOTEL: If you wish, you can tip the owner. If you don't want to give money, you can buy say, flowers for women and a bottle of wine for men.
By accident we got on a number 6 tram thinking we were heading towards Bulgaria Square but in fact heading in the wrong direction. We got off near the end of the line next to a large cemetery. Many of the graves, though quite interesting, were fairly overgrown. Some had hammer and sickle insignia on them. Then we found a large Jewish section. Our most interesting find though was the war cemetery. Various nationalities of war dead are laid to rest here. We explored the British and German sections. Most of the British war dead were prisoners of war in Bulgaria during World War 1. Several graves were of soldiers from the Macedonian Muleteers Regiment which I had never heard of. The German cemetery next door had some war dead from World War 1, but many more were from World War 11. The war cemeteries were very well kept and interesting.
This is a trendy little internet café on Vitosha Blvd that is not that expensive. The computers are quite new and very fast. You can get one with a headset and/or a webcam if you are looking to chat with the folks back home. There are also drink and snack machines in the foyer. Perhaps the best part of this internet café is that they only allow people to smoke in the stairwell. I have nothing against smokers, but it makes the experience a lot easier on your eyes without smoke in the air. Internet time. 3 leva an hour
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