Sofia travel guide

Top 10 sights in Sofia

Ranked by Wikipedia language editions — proven fame.

1. 

   1© Plamen Agov (user:MrPanyGoff) · CC BY-SA 4.0

   Alexander Nevsky Cathedral

   Built between 1882 and 1912 as Bulgaria's thanks to the roughly two hundred thousand Russian soldiers who died freeing it from Ottoman rule. The gold-leafed central dome rises forty-five metres, five thousand people fit inside, and the crypt holds the best collection of Orthodox icons in the country.

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2. 

   2© Todor Bozhinov / Тодор Божинов · CC BY-SA 3.0

   Boyana Church

   A small church on the edge of the city whose second layer of frescoes, painted in 1259, contains two hundred and forty figures given individual faces and volume two centuries before the Italian Renaissance. It is World Heritage, and eight visitors at a time are allowed in for ten minutes.

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3. 

   3© xiquinhosilva from Cacau · CC BY 2.0

   Banya Bashi Mosque

   An Ottoman mosque of 1566, one of the oldest in Europe still in use, built over the hot springs that gave it its name — steam still rises from the fountain beside it and Sofians queue there with plastic bottles for the mineral water.

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4. 

   4© Klearchos Kapoutsis from Paleo Faliro, Greece · CC BY 2.0

   Saint Sophia Church

   A church of the fourth to sixth centuries, and the building the city is named after — Sofia took its name from this Holy Wisdom, not the other way round. Roman tombs and mosaic floors from the necropolis it was built over are open underneath it.

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5. 

   5© Mark Ahsmann · CC BY-SA 4.0

   National Archaeological Museum, Bulgaria

   The archaeological museum, in the Büyük mosque of 1474, holding Thracian gold, Roman sculpture and the Valchitran treasure — a Bronze Age gold service of over twelve kilograms whose purpose is still argued about.

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6. 

   6© Radi SADEK · CC BY-SA 3.0

   Saint Nedelya Church

   The Orthodox cathedral of the Sofia diocese. Communist militants blew off its roof during a funeral service in April 1925 in an attempt to kill the tsar and his government, killing about a hundred and fifty other people — one of the deadliest attacks in interwar Europe.

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7. 

   7© Јакша · CC BY-SA 4.0

   National History Museum

   Bulgaria's largest museum, in a former party residence at Boyana, holding the Panagyurishte treasure — six kilograms of Thracian gold drinking vessels of the fourth century BC, found by three brothers digging clay for bricks in 1949.

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8. 

   8© Plamen Agov (Пламен Агов) · CC BY-SA 3.0

   Central Synagogue of Sofia

   A synagogue of 1909 in Moorish revival, the largest Sephardi synagogue in southeastern Europe. Almost all of Bulgaria's fifty thousand Jews survived the war, the country's parliament and church having refused deportation; most then left for Israel, so the congregation is now small.

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   Saint George Rotunda Church

   Rotunda in Sofia built of red brick around AD 320, the oldest building in the city. Its dome carries three layers of frescoes painted between the sixth and fourteenth centuries.

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10. 

    10© Elena Chochkova · CC BY-SA 3.0

    National Art Gallery of Bulgaria

    The national gallery, in the former royal palace on the main square, with over fifty thousand works of Bulgarian art. Its nineteenth- and early twentieth-century rooms are the record of a country inventing a national culture at speed.

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1. 

   1© Desiignat · CC BY-SA 4.0

   Vrana Palace

   A royal palace in a large park on the edge of the city, built for the Bulgarian kings and returned to the former royal family after 1998. Part of the park is open at weekends and is the best piece of green space near Sofia.

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2. 

   2© Angela Monika Arnold, Berlin · CC BY-SA 3.0

   Georgi Dimitrov Mausoleum

   The mausoleum built in six days in 1949 for Georgi Dimitrov, Bulgaria's first communist leader, whose embalmed body lay in it until 1990. Demolition in 1999 took four attempts — the concrete refused to come down — which Bulgarians found funnier than the government did.

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3. 

   3© Bin im Garten · CC BY-SA 3.0

   Largo

   An ensemble of three Socialist Classicist buildings around Independence Square in Sofia. It was planned and built in the 1950s as the new centre of the city and is regarded as the leading example of that style in southeastern Europe.

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4. 

   4© Elena Chochkova · CC BY-SA 3.0

   Serdica

   The Roman city that stood on the site of present-day Sofia. Its name survives in the excavated Serdica fortress in the city centre and in the Serdika district.

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5. 

   5© Ferran Cornellà · CC BY-SA 3.0

   Monument to the Soviet Army

   A partly dismantled monument to the Soviet army in Sofia. A wide park spreads around the sculpture and draws crowds of young people.

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6. 

   6© Todor Bozhinov / Тодор Божинов / Martyr · CC BY-SA 3.0

   National Gallery for Foreign Art

   A gallery on St Alexander Nevsky Square in Sofia, the national institution for art from outside Bulgaria.

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7. 

   7© Nenko Lazarov · CC BY 2.5

   Monument to the Tsar Liberator

   An equestrian monument of 1907 to Alexander II of Russia, who emancipated the serfs and whose armies ended Ottoman rule here. Thirty-one sculptors from twelve countries competed for the commission and an Italian won it; it faces the parliament.

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8. 

   8© Plamen Agov (Пламен Агов) · CC BY-SA 3.0

   Seven Saints Church

   A church in Sofia built as an Ottoman mosque in 1547, later turned into an Orthodox church and consecrated on 27 July 1903. It honours Cyril and Methodius together with their five disciples.

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9. 

   9© Maymay · CC BY-SA 3.0

   Sofia Zoo

   Founded by royal decree in 1888 and the oldest and largest zoo in southeastern Europe, holding around two thousand animals. It began as the king's own menagerie and moved to its present site at the foot of Vitosha in 1984.

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10. 

    10© Svik at Bulgarian Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 3.0

    Monument to the Unknown Soldier

    A monument at 2 Paris Street in Sofia, immediately beside the sixth-century church of St Sofia. It honours the hundreds of thousands of Bulgarian soldiers who died defending the country, and ceremonies attended by the president and by visiting heads of state are frequently held at it.

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