Sep 9 2025

We had entertained the idea of getting driven up the mountain to hike to the Black Mountain summit (one of Cvetozar’s recommendations) but we simply did not have enough time. 

I did wake early enough to watch Dad’s being awarded his OAM back in Melbourne

Lori went for a morning run and I endeavoured to go for a swim at the nearby Ramada. Well a single visit that included pool, sauna and spa was 40 Lev. No option to just use the pool. And I would have had to buy a 10 Lev swim cap. 

And it was only 20m! 

We first wandered through the Women’s Market but we were even a bit early for them and eventually settled on what appeared to be a quite popular with the locals bakery for coffee as the hotel offering was very disappointing. 

We continued to the Catholic Cathedral which was quite compact and simple on the inside. Actually looked larger on the outside. We liked it better than the many of the other over ornate churches we’d seen. 

We managed to find our way to the Opera/Ballet. Almost walked past as it was sort of on a side street. We tried to find the National Theatre also but Google led us to a non descript part of the city with no theatre evident. 

So we tracked back to the National Art Museum via the Sofia trigonometric point marked by a tower. Unfortunately was closed. The gallery was just right for us. Not too many rooms. And placed in the former Royal Palace so we got to see some of the room interiors. 

Grabbing a salad for the bus it was off to Rila Monastery. The story goes that St John (St Ivan Rilski) set himself up as a hermit in a cave nearby. Well the monks that faithfully that followed kind of deviated from that ethos in their subsequent construction. The interior of the church was an orgy of gold (no photos). The attached museum was quite fascinating, helped by the “pre-tour” we received from the kind local fellow who was chatting with us while we waited for the ticket lady to come back from her smoko.  Most amazing was the intricately carved Rafail’s wooden cross. 36 scenes and 650 figures. Though it could be argued that a lot of them were just carved parts of helmets in the crowd scenes. 

After a very tasty local pastry and jam (the pastry seeming very much like bannock) we continued on to Bansko. Bansko was a very different feel. Very much a ski town at the base of the Pirin Mountains. Had one of the better local meals: a skillet of pork and (finally) vegetables. Just the right size portion as well. 

It was nice to be a little cooler.