Cable cars – mountain spoilers

Two cable cars are functioning at the mountains near Sofia, that are spoiling the atmosphere of nature. The two sites are the famous Seven Rila Lakes and the Mussala peak (the highest peak) of the Balkan peninsula.

Reaching the 7RL is not such a difficult task lately. You must simply go by car to the Pionerska hut, near the city of Sapareva banya and then taking the chair lift. Hundreds or maybe thousands of people visit The Lakes since the opening of the lift and the place is really crowdy on weekends even if the weather is bad.

http://www.btv.bg/news/news_details.pcgi?cont_id=139302

I strongly recommend you to visit that magical place on a weekday. Moreover get some proper shoes and clothes and a tourist insurance. There were a series of incidents involving unprepared “mountaineers”. In case you decide to visit it on a weekend and don’t want to wait for the crowded cable car, get prepared for an 8-hour walk.

The same applies to the Mussala peak and the neighbouring region. You may visit it for 10 leva (5 EUR) the return ticket or at least go up the mountain quickly from the Borovets ski resort. From there you will need a day walking to climb the peak and reach the cable car on time. The catch again is the crowd.  The construction of a large hut is under way so you will for sure meet lots of transport vehicles. Again – visit the place on week days to avoid the crowd and feel the true spirit of the mountain. Otherwise you will have to wait for an hour and a half for the cable car. That applies mostly for the warmest days of the year when hundreds of people try to escape from the cities.

 

Underground revolution – we have METRO!

As of September 7th we can proudly say that Sofia is now equipped with a real and working underground railway. It is now connecting the east and west district of the Bulgarian capital. That means the two largest communist-pride style compounds Lyulin to the west and Mladost to the East. It is not a real matter of tourist interest though, since using the metropolitan you won’t get to see any of Sofia’s sights. Nevertheless if you’re trying to choose a cheaper place to stay, away from the center, but you still want to be close to the most important sights of town, you should bare in mind the possiblity of moving around underground. The newest station is at the Sofia University, close to all of the landmarks such as the – St. Alexander Nevsky cathedral, the Parliament, The Yellow Brick Road etc. Check out the map:

http://www.metropolitan.bg/bg/map/

Unfortunatelly in simple and understandable Bulgarian ss you can see.  If you want to know some details on it, leave a comment.

 

“Pink” flights from Sofia to Venice

If visiting Sofia you’ll have the chance to take a low cost flight to Treviso, Italy near Venice. The “pink” flights will run on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays as of June 27. Wizzair is also flying directly from London’s  Luton airport to the Black sea coastal city of Varna twice a week. Since last summer Wizzair can take you from Sofia straight to the heart of the EU – Brussels.

 

Tourist sites to discover!

Recently I’ve found an interesting section of Bulgarian national radio’s website called Across the map of Bulgaria. It offers the tourist a wide veriety of stories through which you’ll discover many interesting sites that are worthed visiting. There you go some of them:

Strandzha villages – vacation in the past

Rafting on Tundza River

A Spring Journey to the Waterfalls Canyon

Enjoy the stories 🙂

 

Beaches of Varna and Burgas to be avoided -> EC

The water at 6 of the Bulgarian beaches does not respond to the European union’s standards. This states a report of the European Commission for the quality of the bathing water in different water basins.

According to the report 83 bathing beaches or 93.3% of all those in Bulgaria comply with the basic microbiological and physicochemical standards. The EC explained that this data was made public in order to inform the EU citizens before the upcoming vacations period.

Among those in poorest state are the beaches at the gulfs of Varna and Burgas, which is no surprise since both of them receive hundreds of ships from all over the world at their ports.  Moreover Burgas is home of the largest oil refinery in the country.

 

Hiking season info

Since the hiking season is coming up, I decided to give you some info on some exit points to Sofia nearby mountains such as Rila and Pirin. I consider them as the most attractive ones for the hiking fans. For most of the routes described bellow, you should leave from the Central bus station.

RILA

A major exit point for Rila is the city of Sapareva banya – some 73 km to the south from Sofia.  Up to this moment there is no direct bus line from Sofia to Sapareva banya. The best thing to do is taking the bus to Dupnitsa and from there another bus to Sapareva banya. If you’re lucky, you could hitchhike to the Pionerska hut, otherwise you’ll have to climb 15 km up the road. If going there by car you should bare in mind that the parking at the hut is paid.  But the price is up to the hut’s managers which can name you a price according to the way you look like. You can also leave it by the road. Many people do that. The last way is to leave it at an upper parking near the chair lift. It is a few hundred meters up the road. There’s a clearing and a wagon where a guy serves as guard. So you should pay him some money and leave calm for your trip.

Another exit point is the Maliovitsa resort. From there you can get to the Maliovitsa peak and other attractive sites. Again teher’s no easy way to get there from Sofia. First of all you should take a bus to Samokov and then another one to Maliovitsa from there. Buses leave to Samokov every half an hour from the Southern Bus Station (Avtogara Yug). It is located under a concrete bridge near Interpred trade center.

Once arrived to Maliovitsa you just climb up the wood. If going to the 7 Rila lakes you can go back the road you were delivered by the bus. Than you must not miss an alley through the wood leading you to the Vada hut which is an exit point to the Lakes. Near Maliovitsa resort you’ll find plenty of space to park if going by car.

PIRIN

The easiest way to get to Pirin is from Bansko resort. From there you must go up to the Vihren hut. By car is more or less easy because the road is ok. There’s no bus as much as I know so either you should walk, either get a taxi or hitchhike. At Vihren hut it is easy to park, specially in week days and nobody wants you to pay. If going there at night there are many camping spots before Banderitsa hut which is just before Vihren hut.

Another popular exitpoint is Dobrinishte village which is a few kilometers from Bansko. At the village you’ll find a chair lift to the nowadays popular hut of Bezbog. Thehut and the chair lift are controversial but attract many young people. In fact the majority of the huts are controversial and lackk hospitality, but the nature is worthed. If going by car at Dobrinishte you’ll find parking places.

In order to get some info on routes or buy maps of Bulgaria’s mountains you could contact Zig Zag holidays agency in Sofia.

 

Places to avoid in Sofia

As I said in the “In the city” section, Sofia is more or less safe place. Although, as in many other cities, there are places that you’d better not visit or be more cautious when passing through them.

1. The first 2 places are the so called roma ghettos – Filipovtsi and Fakulteta. They aren’t listed in any guide and are at the outskirts of the town you must try very hard to find them. Anyway don’t go there. They are slums where you’ll find nothing but dirt, drugs and trouble.

2. The second spot or better said area is the so called Jenski pazar or Women’s market. It is the largest open air market. There you can meet lots of pick-pocketers. So be cautious when going there led by your curiosity. It’s practically in the center, near the mosque and the synagogue.

3. “Lavov most” or the The Lion’s bridge, called because of the lion statues with which is decorated the bridge, is another hot spot. There you can find also pick-pocketers at day time and roma hookers at night. Basically the two parallel boulevards “Maria Louiza” and “Hristo Botev” attract different type of lowlifes after sunset.

4. The area around the Central train station is also not a pretty place especially at night – again hookers, robbers, gluesniffers etc.

The last three places are more or less in the same region of the city and you will easily find them on the map.

5. Makedonia square at night becomes a flesh market for transvestite hookers which would shout you some dirty stuff. They are basically not aggressive but the feeling is not nice.

Generally speaking the northern part of the town is less attractive and safe than the southern.

map – soon:)

 

Stray dogs

Stray dogs are a common problem for the Bulgarian urban and rural regions. So you can easily meet them even in downtown Sofia. The dogs in the capital are basically harmless. The people like to feed them and take care of them so they won’t attack. Anyway, be careful if you see a pack of dogs. There have been several cases of people attacked by street dogs these years. Even a British woman bitten to death in a deserted rural area, but generally you shouldn’t be affraid.

 

Welcome!

Hi there,

Welcome to the Sofia Guide. Check out our step by step travel advices for the city of Sofia.

Arriving

In the city

Links to english language sites

If you want to know something specific, ask for HELP. If you don’t feel comfortable in English you can ask your questions in Spanish, French, Italian or Russian. (German is not my specialty).