Woke up early again, 05:30, jet lag still hanging around. Opened the
curtains and looked out at the magnificent view of rusty corrugated iron
roofs and a scrapyard.
Down to breakfast at about 09:00, lots of people.
Filled up with the usual - toast, bacon, sausages, egg, yoghurt, orange juice and coffee.
Google
said the temperature was 8c and would probably rain, a big difference
from Doha, so wrapped up. Walked to the bus station to book for
tomorrow, into the main bus station and asked at information about where
to book for our leg to Serbia the next day. The woman clearly hadn't
expected to have to actually answer a question and just said 'next
building' and went back to reading her magazine.
The 'next building'
consisted of about 50 small bus companies so we went door to door
asking 'Nis, Serbia?'. 'No Nis'. 'Which company goes to Nis?' 'I don't
know'. Repeated until we found one who did go, but only 07:30 (a bit
early) or 16:00 (too late). Plus she had keys in her hand and obviously
didn't want to hang around. We said we'd think about it and come back.
Found another one that left at 09:00 which was perfect. 'Tomorrow?'. 'No
tomorrow.' 'Who else goes to Nis?'. 'I don't know.'
So we sat down
and waited for the miserable woman to come back. Actually they were all
miserable, I don't know why, I am perfectly charming.
Booked the
bus, then back to the hotel to drop off our jackets because although it
was now about 14c the sun was out and it was quite warm.
Walked down
one of the main streets, the pavement and a lot of the buildings needed
repairs. Found ourselves in a street full of jewellery shops - I'm sure
Song has some kind of radar.
Kept going, came across a mosque and
some ancient buildings that were only unearthed in 2011 when they
started to build a new metro station. Sofia has a long history - the
Greeks, Romans and Ottomans were here.
Headed towards the main
attraction of Sofia, the cathedral, when Song saw a crowd of people
across the road. This is usually a sign of something interesting, and in
this case it was the changing of the guard outside the Presidency
building. There were about 20 guards in red ceremonial uniforms with
white braid, hats with a single feather, carrying swords and rifles.
There was much shouting of orders, unsheathing and re sheathing of
swords, banging of drums and blowing of trumpet, marching round in
circles, guards shouting at each other, and twirling of rifles. To be
honest it would have been easy for someone to sneak in while everyone
was distracted. It went on for about 30 minutes whereupon they all
marched off. We saw them a minute later getting on a bus and standing
around smoking, it sort of killed the spectacle.
Wandered off and
came across a park with some souvenir stands and a hotdog stand. We each
had one, pretty average. Song bought the obligatory fridge magnet.
There was also a piano, and 2 young blokes were playing classical music.
Very pleasant to stand there in the sun listening to it - one of them
was very good.
Popped over the road to a coffee shop (only $2.50!) and relaxed for a while before going on.
Walked
back through the park, lots of people sitting enjoying the weather,
then onto the cathedral. Walked around it taking photos of the unusual
design and golden domes, and paid $8 to look around the museum which was
just loads of religious paintings on wood. If we had known we wouldn't
have bothered, but it didn't cost much. Whizzed around pretty quickly
but sat down for a while so that the woman on the desk wouldn't wonder
why we didn't spend longer inside, then up into the church itself.
I
have to say it was much more impressive from the outside - inside was
empty, there were frescoes on the walls and ceilings but in need of
restoration. You had to pay to take photos but we decided against it.
Didn't
spend long, then outside where there was a flea market selling all
sorts of junk; old cigarette lighters and second hand pipes (who would
buy those?), Lionel Ritchie LPs, Russian medals and a disconcerting
amount of Nazi memorabilia. We didn't buy anything, surprisingly.
The
weather turned, suddenly cloudy and cold, reminding me of Melbourne,
and started to rain. We headed back the way we came, heading to a
shopping mall, when it started to rain heavier so we thought we'd take
the metro - always an adventure in a foreign country. It was only one
stop so didn't think we'd have too much trouble. The first thing I did
wrong was to go to the wrong line. Then I put the ticket in the gate and
tried to go through the wrong side. A local took pity on me and told me
what to do. I think the trick is to watch the natives and follow their
lead.
Got out and the rain was coming down heavier. Luckily we'd brought an umbrella. Unluckily we'd left it back in the hotel.
The mall was only round the corner so we braved it, got a bit wet but were soon sat at another cafe in the warm.
We
were pleasantly surprised with Sofia - although not a lot to see, the
place itself is clean, the people are well dressed. Unlike a lot of the
Eastern European countries we've visited there was very little graffiti,
far less than Melbourne, and our economic measure of how a country is
doing is to look at the cars - on a whole pretty good - Mercedes, BMW,
Porsche, Audi - all were present. The others were generally in good
condition and relatively new.
There are old, boarded up buildings,
and some vacant land with rubbish, but not as many as we saw in places
like Bucharest and Lisbon a few years ago.
Strolled back to the hotel, stopped off
at market to get some food for the bus trip. Neither of us was hungry so
skipped dinner. Watched TV then slept, tomorrow Serbia.
