Greetings!
Our local Guide (Rumy) took us on a tour of Sofia today. Running for many blocks between our hotel and the City Center is a pedestrian street called Vitosha Blvd. Here could be found restaurants, and upscale shops, and (today) a book faire in tent structures in the middle of the street. According to Cushman and Wakefield (2007), the street is the world's 22nd most expensive street.
In the City Center, a Roman city was found two decades ago while excavating the ground for a metro system. The process also uncovered and confirmed many structures which had been built and converted by those who occupied Sofia after the Romans (Byzantines, Ottomans, and Bulgarians). After descending into the preserved Roman ruins, we returned to the streets to learn about the churches, royal residences, and party headquarters brought about by more recent conquerors.
We ended the morning at the
Alexander Nevsky Cathedral, one of the largest Eastern Orthodox cathedrals in the world. Restricted photos, you'll just have to imagine a huge brick dome with six two-ton chandeliers, and frescoes illustrating stories from the Bible (including one with Jesus as a teenager). Rumy and her children were baptized here, and she told us the choir was particularly impressive.
Found a photo on the Internet which doesn't do it justice. It doesn't convey the immensity of it, nor any of the many frescoes.
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