The Best Parks in Sofia: My 8 Favourite Green Spaces

Sofia's big parks start at the edge of the centre. Borisova Gradina covers 302 hectares a short walk from Alexander Nevsky Cathedral, South Park runs south from NDK towards Vitosha, and the mountain's nature park starts where the southern suburbs end. These are the eight parks I actually use, with what's in each, how to get there and what I'd go for.

Sofia's parks at a glance

Five of my eight are in or beside the centre and need nothing more than a metro ticket and comfortable shoes. The other three need more time: the long southern run of South Park, a royal estate and the mountain.

Borisova Gradina: the big park by the centre

Borisova Gradina (Борисова градина) is my number one. If you only have time for one park, make it this. It covers 302 hectares on the south-eastern side of the centre and it's the oldest of Sofia's big parks: the mayor brought in a Swiss gardener, Daniel Neff, in 1882, and work began in 1884.

I start at Sofia University metro and walk in along the chestnut avenues. Inside there's a big lake dug in 1889, Fish Lake, a waterlily lake and the Rosarium, 7,000 square metres planted with over 1,400 varieties of rose. Above Fish Lake, towards Tsarigradsko Shose, the Japanese Corner has been there since 1940. The TV tower, built in 1958 and 1959, helps you keep your bearings.

It was Knyaz-Borisova Gradina, after Knyaz (later Tsar) Boris III, until the communist government renamed it Freedom Park after 1944, and the old name came back after 1989. Three gardeners shaped it over 62 years: Neff until 1906, Joseph Frei until 1934 and Georgi Duhtev until 1944.

You can hire a boat on Lake Ariana. On summer evenings Maimunarnika, inside the park, puts on hip hop, drum and bass and rock nights. By day the main avenues belong to prams and bikes.

South Park (Yuzhen Park): my favourite for sunset

South Park (Южен парк) is the park I take friends to at the end of a day. It covers 148 hectares, about half the size of Borisova Gradina, and runs south from NDK through Triaditsa, with Lozenets along its eastern side. It's the city's long green corridor towards Vitosha.

On the map, the park comes in three parts. The smallest is the green round NDK itself, between Vitosha, Patriarch Evtimiy and Bulgaria boulevards and Frityof Nansen Street. The second lies south of Bulgaria Boulevard, between Cherni Vrah, Arsenalski and Petko Karavelov boulevards, and the largest runs from Byala Cherkva Street down to Henrik Ibsen Boulevard.

The Perlovska River runs through it, and 65 species of birds have been recorded here, 29 of them protected. A statue of Mahatma Gandhi stands among the trees. The playgrounds fill up after school, and the park hosts free concerts, markets and sports events through the year.

South Park has fewer sights than Borisova Gradina. That's why I like it. You come here to sit on the grass, and on a clear evening Vitosha turns pink beyond the tower blocks. Of all my viewpoints in Sofia, it's the one where I bring a picnic blanket.

Spartak, an indoor and outdoor pool, is beside the park at 4 Arsenalski Boulevard, and Loven Park joins South Park on the Lozenets side. If you have children with you, the playgrounds make South Park my first pick of the parks for Sofia with kids.

The parks in Sofia's city centre

Four smaller parks sit among the sights, and I use them the way Londoners use their squares: for a sit-down, a coffee or a beer between one thing and the next.

The NDK park and Bulgaria Square

Vitosha Boulevard ends at the park in front of the National Palace of Culture, and it's my favourite place for people-watching on a summer evening. NDK opened on 31 March 1981. The square and gardens in front of it, Bulgaria Square, were landscaped by a team under Atanas Agura.

Fountains run down the middle, and skateboarders take over the paved terraces. The National Palace of Culture itself hosts concerts, conferences and the Kinomania film festival every November. NDK metro (M2) and NDK II (M3) both stop here.

City Garden, by the National Theatre

The City Garden (Градска градина) has been here since 1872, a decade before Daniel Neff arrived to plan Borisova Gradina. It began as the Alexander II Garden, named after the Russian tsar, and after 1878 the city architect Antonín Kolář redesigned it for the new capital, with a coffeehouse and a kiosk for musicians.

Today it's a small square of trees, benches and a big fountain between Tsar Osvoboditel Boulevard and Gurko Street. The fountain sits in front of the Ivan Vazov National Theatre, my first pick for theatre in Sofia, and amateur chess players gather on the benches beside it. A self-service cafe under the trees sells coffee and cold beer.

On 27 August 1895, about 300 people gathered in this garden and then climbed Cherni Vrah, the top of Vitosha, led by the writer Aleko Konstantinov. Bulgarians date the birth of tourism in their country, in the old sense of walking in the mountains, to that day.

Doctor's Garden

Doctor's Garden (Докторска градина) lies between Oborishte and Shipka streets, behind the National Library. It's named after its monument, a memorial to the medics who died in the Russo-Turkish War of 1877 and 1878, most of them with the Russian Red Cross. The Russian architect Antoniy Tomishko designed it, and it went up in 1883 and 1884.

It's shady, with paved paths and benches. The streets round it hold some of my favourite cafes in Sofia. It's a short walk from Sofia University metro, and I come here after the cathedral with a takeaway coffee.

Zaimov Park

Zaimov Park sits on Yanko Sakazov Boulevard in Oborishte, east of Alexander Nevsky Cathedral, and the Sofia Theatre stands inside it. It's small and leafy, with a playground and a beer house, Darvenoto, with a covered terrace.

Sputnik, my favourite of the cocktail bars in Sofia, is on the boulevard at the edge of the park, next door to the rakia bar Raketa. So I walk through on a summer evening, with the playground emptying and the beer house filling up, and finish at one of the two.

Parks on the edge of Sofia

The last two need a bus, and they're the ones for a slower day with more trees than people.

Vrana Park, the old royal estate

Vrana (Врана) was the country estate of Bulgaria's tsars, on the south-eastern edge of Sofia. Tsar Ferdinand bought the land in 1898 and laid out the park in 1903, and the palace was built mainly between 1909 and 1914. The royal family gave the park to the city in October 1999, and it has opened to the public at weekends since June 2013.

The park covers 96.8 hectares and holds over 400 plant species, and it's protected as a national monument of landscape architecture. Landscape gardeners laid it out with a lake and several rock gardens, and the open lawns are ringed by tall spruces and broadleaf trees. Bus X50 runs from Orlov Most (Eagles' Bridge) to its last stop, Vrana Palace.

Vitosha Nature Park

Vitosha is the biggest green space on Sofia's doorstep. It became a nature park in 1934, the first in the Balkans, and it covers 266 square kilometres, rising to 2,290 metres at Cherni Vrah. Entry is free. There are no gates.

Two city buses go up. Both cost €0.80. Bus 66 runs from Vitosha metro (M2) and Sofia Zoo up to Aleko at 1,810 metres, where the paths to the summit start. Bus 63 runs from Tsar Boris III Boulevard to the Golden Bridges (Златните мостове), a stone river of giant boulders along the Vladayska River, and the easiest place on the mountain for a short walk in the forest. From Aleko, Cherni Vrah is 1.5 to 2 hours' climb, and it's the first of the day hikes near Sofia I'd do.

More small parks and green spaces in Sofia

Four more green spaces fit round other plans, and two of them are for a summer swim:

• The University Botanic Garden, near Alexander Nevsky Cathedral, charges a small entry fee.
• The garden round the Russian Church, a few minutes on foot from the City Garden, has benches under the trees below its gold domes.
• Vazrazhdane Park, just west of the centre, has an outdoor pool complex with a mini waterpark from June to early September.
• West Park in Lyulin has the Pulse Beach outdoor pools, and they're the reason I'd go.

In July and August, when highs average about 28°C, the outdoor pools in Vazrazhdane and West Park are my pick of the swimming pools in Sofia for families.

A half day in Sofia's parks

This is the park afternoon I'd plan on a weekend trip. It uses the metro twice and works best from April to October, when the evenings are long.

Vitosha Boulevard, NDK and South Park at sunset made number 6 on my list of things to do in Sofia, and this route ends there. If it rains, swap Borisova Gradina for a museum and keep the evening.

The best time of year for Sofia's parks

May is my favourite month in the parks, and one of the three I'd call the best time to visit Sofia. The chestnuts flower along the avenues of Borisova Gradina and highs average about 21°C. Late May and June bring the roses in the Rosarium, though June is also Sofia's wettest month.

July and August are hot, so I keep to the shade of Borisova Gradina in the day and the lawns of South Park after 7pm, or head up Vitosha, where it's cooler. September and October bring the autumn colours, and October highs average about 18°C, a degree warmer than April.

In winter the trees are bare and highs sit between 3.5°C and 6.5°C, so I use the parks for a quick walk between museums. In December the German Christmas market fills the City Garden in front of the National Theatre, one of my favourite Christmas traditions in Sofia.