Rotunda of St George in Sofia: Frescoes, Ruins and How I'd Visit

The Rotunda of St George is Sofia's oldest standing building: a round red-brick church from the 4th century, sunk a few metres below the street in a courtyard behind the Presidency. It's free, it takes 20 minutes, and it's my favourite quick stop in the centre. Here's what to look for inside, the Roman ruins around it, how to find the way in and what I pair it with.

Why the Rotunda of St George is famous

The Rotunda of St George is the oldest building still standing in Sofia. The Romans built it in the early 4th century, when the city was Serdica, and it has outlasted the Roman Empire, the medieval tsars and the Ottomans. In the 1950s the communists built the stone government blocks of the Largo around it.

It's small. Inside is one round room on a square base, with a semicircular niche in each corner and a dome 13.7 metres high. The brick walls sit a few metres below today's pavements, because Roman Serdica's ground level was that much lower.

The Romans most likely built it as part of a bath complex, and early in its Christian life it became the place for baptisms.

Of all the churches in Sofia, this one is the oldest, about 200 years older than the 6th-century St Sofia. It's also part of #3 on my list of things to do in Sofia, together with the Roman ruins and the four places of worship a few minutes away.

Rotunda of St George opening hours, entry and rules

Neither the church nor the ruins charge for entry. The church opens daily from about 8am to 7.30pm. The Roman remains around it belong to the Museum of the History of Sofia, which lists them as open 24 hours on its page for the site.

The Rotunda is a working Bulgarian Orthodox church, so church manners apply: cover your shoulders and knees, men take their hats off, and voices stay low. In Bulgarian churches the candles for the living go in the upper stand and the ones for the dead in the lower tray of sand, so watch where locals put theirs before you light one.

The Russian Church bans photos inside, and Alexander Nevsky sells a photo permit for about €5. At the Rotunda, look for a sign by the door, and if there isn't one, ask at the candle stand before you raise your phone. Never photograph people while they pray.

Christenings happen here too, and now and then a concert or a military ceremony, so the room isn't always open to wander.

How to find the Rotunda behind the Presidency

The Rotunda of St George (Ротонда „Свети Георги“) hides in the inner courtyard of the huge stone block that holds the Presidency and the Balkan hotel, at the St Nedelya end of the Largo. From the Largo you can't see it at all.

The way in is an arched passage through the Presidency building. Walk into it and the brick dome appears at the far end, framed by the arch, and then you go down a few steps to Roman ground level.

Serdika metro station sits under the Largo, about 3 minutes' walk from the passage. A single ride on Sofia's metro, trams and buses costs €0.80, and if you tap a contactless card at the barrier, the system stops charging you at €2 for the day. From Vitosha Boulevard it's a 5-minute walk north past St Nedelya Church.

The Rotunda of St George frescoes, layer by layer

A carved wooden iconostasis stands across the apse. Around it the walls are a patchwork of bare brick where the plaster fell away and painted saints where it held, with paint running from the 10th century to the Ottoman years.

The 22 prophets in the dome

Stand in the middle of the floor and look straight up. A ring of 22 prophets runs round the dome, each figure more than 2 metres tall and most of them holding an unrolled scroll. They're usually dated to the 11th or 12th century, and they're the paintings the Rotunda is known for.

The small windows in the drum light them unevenly, so walk a slow circle under the dome. A prophet who looks like a shadow from the door turns into a face with a beard and a scroll once the light catches him.

The 10th-century angel

The oldest painting you can see clearly dates from the 10th century, the golden age of the First Bulgarian Empire under Tsar Simeon. Look for the angel's face just under the dome. It's counted among the finest Bulgarian painting of those years, and it's the face I always go back to before I leave.

The bishop by the door and the Ottoman years

North of the entrance is a 14th-century portrait of a bishop, the donor who paid for that round of work. In the 16th century the Ottomans turned the church into a mosque and plastered over the saints, and a few of the Islamic patterns they painted still show.

The Muslim congregation left in the mid-19th century, and the church went back to the Orthodox. The Ottoman plaster kept the prophets out of sight until restorers uncovered them in the 20th century.

The Roman ruins around the Rotunda

The courtyard is an open-air piece of Serdica. Behind the church's apse runs a stretch of Roman street with its drainage still in place. Beside it lie the foundations of a large three-nave basilica, probably a public building, and the bases of several smaller buildings, all from the end of the 3rd century to the start of the 4th.

One of the smaller buildings had a hypocaust, and the tile stacks that held its floor up are still there. The courtyard doesn't close, so this is the part you can still see after the church shuts for the evening.

Historians call this part of the city Constantine's quarter, because the palace of Emperor Constantine the Great stood here. Centuries later the same quarter held the palace of Sebastocrator Kaloyan, the lord who paid for the 1259 frescoes at Boyana Church.

The courtyard is one stop on a longer trail through Roman Serdica, which runs through Serdika metro station, across St Nedelya Square and on to the Western Gate by St Joseph's Cathedral.

A short history of the Rotunda of St George

For a time the Rotunda kept the relics of St Ivan of Rila, the hermit behind Rila Monastery and Bulgaria's patron saint. Legend says they cured the Byzantine emperor Manuel Komnenos. Béla III took them to Hungary in 1183, they came back to Bulgaria in 1187, and they've rested at Rila since 1469.

King Stefan Milutin of Serbia rested here too, before his relics moved across the square to St Nedelya Church, where they still are.

Bulgaria spent nearly 500 years under Ottoman rule until 1878, a stretch of Bulgarian history in which several of Sofia's churches became mosques, St Sofia Church among them.

The changing of the guard at the Presidency

The Presidency's guards of honour stand at its front door on the Largo, a short walk from the Rotunda passage, and they change every hour. Their full dress is a scarlet hussar-style tunic with white braid, dark breeches, black boots and a grey fur cap topped with an eagle feather. The scarlet uniform dates from 1883, when Bulgaria was still ruled by a prince.

The change is over in a few minutes, it costs nothing to watch, and you can photograph it from the pavement. Keep your hands off the guards and stay out of their path.

What's near the Rotunda of St George

The Rotunda sits in the middle of the old centre, and 8 of my favourite sights are within 12 minutes on foot.

St Nedelya is one of four places of worship of four faiths a few minutes apart. The others are Banya Bashi Mosque, built in 1566, the Sofia Synagogue and St Joseph's Catholic Cathedral. Beside the mosque, locals fill big plastic bottles at the free hot taps outside the Central Mineral Baths, which now hold the Museum of the History of Sofia and close on Mondays from November to April.

Walk east along Tsar Osvoboditel Boulevard instead and in 6 minutes you reach the gold domes of the Russian Church. St Sofia Church and Alexander Nevsky Cathedral stand a few minutes beyond it, within about 300 metres of each other.

St Nedelya Church

St Nedelya is the big domed church on the square in front of the hotel, and there's been a church on the spot since the 10th century. In 1925 a bomb attack during a funeral service killed 150 people inside it. The church was rebuilt under a 31-metre dome and reopened in 1933.

It's free and open from 7am to 7pm, which makes it my easy first stop of the morning.

The National Archaeological Museum

Two minutes away, behind the Presidency at 1 Atanas Burov Square, the National Archaeological Museum fills a former Ottoman mosque with Thracian, Roman and medieval finds. It's one of my favourite museums in Sofia, and the place I send anyone who leaves the Rotunda wanting more of Serdica.

Allow about an hour. From November to April it opens from 10am to 5pm and closes on Mondays, and from May to October it opens daily from 10am to 6pm. Adults pay €6 and students €1.50.

The Serdica complex in Serdika metro

Under the Largo, the Serdica complex lays out 8 Roman streets, an early Christian basilica and a set of baths, all found while Serdika metro station was being built between 2010 and 2012. Most of the remains date from the 4th to the 6th century.

The open-air streets around the station concourse are free to walk through, and you'll pass them anyway if you arrive by metro.

A morning around the Rotunda: my plan

This is the order I use when friends visit and want old Sofia in one go. It costs €6 if you include the museum, plus a metro fare to get there.

From November to April, do this on any day but Monday, when the museum is shut.