My Perfect Weekend in Sofia: A 2-Day Plan with Costs

Sofia is a 3-hour flight from Stansted or Luton, the sights in its old centre sit a short walk apart, and lunch costs about €8 to €10. Give me one weekend to show you my city and this is how I'd spend it: Friday dinner with a folk band, Saturday in the old centre and out on the town, Sunday on Vitosha or out at Rila Monastery, with the euro cost of every part.

My weekend in Sofia at a glance

Friday evening: flying into Sofia and getting to the centre

Ryanair flies to Sofia from Stansted all year in 3 hours 5 minutes, and from Bristol, Birmingham and Liverpool in winter in 3 hours 10 to 3 hours 20 minutes. Wizz Air's Luton flight takes about 3 hours 10 minutes. Sofia Airport has two terminals, and the flights from the UK to Sofia don't all land at the same one, so check yours on the booking.

The metro station sits at the eastern end of Terminal 2, and line M4 gets you to Serdika in the centre in 20 to 25 minutes. A ride costs €0.80, and you pay by tapping a bank card at the barriers. From Terminal 1, bus 84 runs to the centre about every 12 minutes for the same fare, or there's a free shuttle bus across to Terminal 2. A taxi from Sofia Airport to the city centre costs about €13 to €14 on the meter, the price of 17 metro rides.

Stay within walking distance of Serdika metro station or Vitosha Boulevard and Saturday morning needs no transport at all. The streets between Vitosha Boulevard and Alexander Nevsky Cathedral are the first of the areas to stay in Sofia I suggest to friends on a two-night trip.

Friday dinner at Hadjidraganovite Izbi

Friday dinner is Hadjidraganovite Izbi, a cellar mehana (tavern) at Hristo Belchev 18, on the corner of Solunska Street. A band plays Bulgarian folk music from 8pm to 11pm every night except Monday, and it's open until 11.30pm, so an evening landing still gets you a table with the band. Visitors fill it on a Friday and the food holds up, which makes it my first-night pick among Sofia's restaurants. Book through izbite.com.

Start with a shopska salad (шопска салата): tomato, cucumber, peppers and onion under a pile of grated sirene, the salty white cheese. Shopska heads my list of Bulgarian dishes to try, and I have it with a small glass of rakia, the grape or plum brandy Bulgarians sip slowly through the salad. After that, order the pork knuckle or anything baked in a clay pot.

Saturday morning: banitsa, Alexander Nevsky and Roman Serdica

Saturday morning is all on foot, and you won't need the metro until after lunch.

Breakfast at Handmade Banitza

Handmade Banitza is a small counter at Solunska 17, open from 8am to 6pm every day, and it's my pick for the best banitsa in Sofia. Banitsa (баница) is filo pastry baked with eggs and sirene; this place bakes cheese, leek, spinach and pumpkin versions, and I always take the leek. Grab a bottle of boza from the fridge to go with it: a thick, sweet and sour grain drink. One piece keeps me going until well past lunchtime.

Alexander Nevsky Cathedral and the antiques market

Walk north-east to Alexander Nevsky Cathedral, built between 1882 and 1912 for the soldiers who died in the Russo-Turkish War of 1877 to 1878. It stands 50.52 metres high. The doors open daily from 7am to 7pm and entry is free, though a camera permit costs about €5 at the candle stand by the entrance.

Out in the garden beside the cathedral, the antiques market at Alexander Nevsky lays out Orthodox icons, Soviet medals and badges, old film cameras and embroidered tablecloths. Buy for the look of a thing, haggle politely and bring cash.

The Rotunda, Serdica and St Nedelya

West of Nevsky, in a courtyard behind the Presidency, stands the Rotunda of St George, a 4th-century red-brick church and the oldest building still standing in Sofia. It served as a mosque under the Ottomans. Three layers of frescoes survive inside, the earliest from the 10th century, with 22 prophets painted around the dome. Entry is free from 8am to 7.30pm.

Ancient Serdica, the Roman city under modern Sofia, is at its best inside Serdika metro station, where excavated streets and building foundations sit along the passages to the trains. The Romans took the area around 29 BC, and walking through costs nothing.

St Nedelya Church, on the square a few steps from the station, stands on a site that has held a church since the 10th century. A bomb attack inside it killed 150 people in 1925, and it reopened in 1933. It's free and open from 7am to 7pm.

Banya Bashi, the hot springs and Zhenski Pazar

North of Serdika, at 2 Maria Luiza Boulevard, Banya Bashi Mosque has stood since 1566 and is credited to the Ottoman architect Mimar Sinan. It's the only working mosque in Sofia, open from 5am to 8pm, and visitors are welcome between prayers in modest clothes.

Beside the mosque, along the side of the old Central Mineral Baths, a row of taps runs hot mineral water for free. Locals queue with plastic bottles and big canisters, so bring an empty bottle, join them and let the water cool before you drink it. The 1913 Central Mineral Baths building now holds the Museum of the History of Sofia, which charges adults €5, and my favourite piece inside is the Thracian gold bowl from Kazichene.

Finish the morning a short walk west at Zhenski Pazar, the Women's Market (Женски пазар), several blocks of stalls along Stefan Stambolov Boulevard. It sells fruit, vegetables, spices, honey and white cheese, and from late summer there are crates of red peppers for roasting. Mornings are busiest, so keep small change handy and an eye on your pockets.

Saturday afternoon: the Museum of Socialist Art and a rooftop drink

Museum of Socialist Art

Trains from Serdika run straight to G.M. Dimitrov station, a short walk from the Museum of Socialist Art at 7 Luchezar Stanchev Street. When communism ended in Bulgaria in 1989 the statues came down, and more than 70 of them now stand in a 7,500 square metre sculpture park: communist leaders, heroic workers, partisans, and the five-pointed star that once topped the Party House in the city centre.

Tickets cost €8, or €4 for students and over-65s. The museum opens Tuesday to Sunday from 10am to 6pm, and the ticket office closes at 5.30pm, so I go straight after lunch and allow an hour and a half. Afterwards, the Sofia metro runs from G.M. Dimitrov back to Sofia University station, a few minutes' walk from Tsar Osvoboditel Boulevard.

A late-afternoon drink at Sense Rooftop Bar

Sense is a hotel at 16 Tsar Osvoboditel Boulevard, and its bar on the 9th floor looks straight at the domes of Alexander Nevsky, close enough to fill the windows. Glass panels slide back in good weather. Of all Sofia's rooftop bars, it's the one I take everyone to first, and in winter you catch the sunset from here before dinner.

It opens at 10am every day and stays open until 2am from Wednesday to Saturday and 1am from Sunday to Tuesday. There's a smart casual dress code after 6pm, and the window tables go first at weekends, so book ahead on +359 884 544 108.

Saturday night: dinner, then the Original Sofia Pub Crawl

Dinner at Manastirska Magernitsa

Manastirska Magernitsa (Манастирска магерница), the Monastery Kitchen, cooks recipes collected from monasteries all over Bulgaria, in an old house at Han Asparuh 67. The courtyard has a cornel tree, and that's the table to ask for in summer. Portions are big and the menu has meatless lenten dishes next to the meat, which suits a mixed group. I order the nettle soup and a glass of the raspberry wine.

It's open from noon to 11pm every day. Book a 7pm table a few days ahead through magernitsa.com and you'll finish in time for the crawl.

The Original Sofia Pub Crawl

Plenty of Sofia's bars hide in basements and behind doors you'd walk straight past, and the Original Sofia Pub Crawl is how I'd see them on a first Saturday. It runs every Friday and Saturday from 9pm, and it has been going since 2014. The group meets in front of the Palace of Justice (Съдебна палата) at 2 Vitosha Boulevard, under the left lion statue: look for the pub crawl sign.

For €21, paid to the guide on the night, a local English-speaking guide takes the group through 4 bars with a welcome shot in each, drinking games and no cover charges, then into a club with free VIP entry around midnight or a little after. Groups are usually 20 to 40 people, most of them on their own or in twos, and by the second bar it's one big group. Any drink beyond the shots is yours to buy, and you stay at the club as long as you like.

Booking is free, and you can also just turn up at the lion. If your flight lands early on Friday, do the crawl that night instead and keep Saturday for jazz, cocktails or a club of your choosing from Sofia's nightlife, where the clubs only start to fill around midnight.

Sunday: Boyana Church, Vitosha or Rila Monastery

Pick one for Sunday. All three are easy on your own by taxi, city bus or hire car.

Boyana Church and Boyana Waterfall

Boyana Church is my first choice for a Sunday morning. It's a tiny medieval church at 3 Boyansko Ezero Street, at the foot of Vitosha, on the UNESCO World Heritage List since 1979, and the main layer of frescoes dates from 1259. The donor portraits of Sebastocrator Kaloyan and his wife Desislava look like portraits of real people, and they're the reason to go.

Tickets are €10, or €3 for students and children over 7. From 1 November to 31 March the church opens from 9am to 5.30pm, and from 1 April to 31 October from 9.30am to 6pm, so be there for opening. A metered taxi in Sofia costs about €8 to €10 each way by day.

From the Boyana neighbourhood a trail climbs to Boyana Waterfall, a 25-metre fall on the Boyana River with its base at 1,260 metres. It's about 3 hours up on foot. Short on time, take a taxi to Kopitoto and the walk drops to about an hour. In a cold winter the fall freezes and ice climbers take over.

Cherni Vrah, the top of Vitosha

Vitosha closes off the southern edge of the city, and its summit, Cherni Vrah, stands at 2,290 metres. The Simeonovo gondola no longer runs, so the way up is bus 66 from Vitosha metro station to Aleko hut at 1,810 metres. From Aleko, the path to Cherni Vrah is 3 km with about 480 metres of climbing, and at the top a weather station built in 1935 has a cafeteria serving hot meals.

Rila Monastery by car

Rila Monastery is a striped, arcaded monastery in a forested valley of the Rila Mountains, about 120 km south of Sofia and 1,147 metres up. It's about 2 hours each way by car. There's no direct bus any more, so without a car you take a bus from Central Bus Station to Blagoevgrad, about 2 hours for under €10, then a taxi for the last 41 km.

Entry to the monastery and its church is free, the combined museum ticket is €12, and the little bakery outside the east gate sells mekitsa, rounds of hot fried dough. Cover your shoulders and knees for the church. If you go by bus, agree the taxi fare in Blagoevgrad before you set off and book the same driver for the ride back. Rila is my favourite of the day trips from Sofia, and I'd save it for a weekend with a Monday flight home.

Sunday afternoon: Vitosha Boulevard, NDK and the airport

Vitosha Boulevard is Sofia's main street, 2.7 km from St Nedelya Square down to South Park and car-free between Patriarh Evtimiy Boulevard and Alabin Street. It's named after the mountain, which closes off the view at the far end on a clear afternoon. I walk it south in the late afternoon and stop at whichever cafe terrace has a free table.

At the bottom stands the National Palace of Culture, NDK to everyone here, a huge communist-era concert and conference hall with a long park and fountains in front. On a warm Sunday the park fills with skateboarders, families and dog walkers. NDK metro station is beside it: change at Serdika for the airport line, which runs until about 23.30, or take a taxi from the centre for about €13 to €14.

What a weekend in Sofia costs

My plan comes to about €120 to €150 for one person from Friday evening to Sunday afternoon, with the Boyana option on Sunday. That leaves out flights, your bed, the banitsa and the drink at Sense.

Two of you sharing the Boyana taxi knocks €8 to €10 off each person's total. Tap the same bank card on every metro, tram and bus ride and getting around Sofia never costs more than €2 a day. A half-litre of draught beer costs about €2 in a local bar and €3.50 on average. Dinner is the line that moves most, because Sofia prices for a sit-down meal vary so much: three courses for two at a mid-range restaurant come to about €60 before drinks, which adds €10 to €15 a head to each of my dinners.

Rainy-day swaps and closing days in Sofia

Sofia has enough indoor sights to rescue a wet Saturday, and most of them are within a few minutes of Serdika.

The Sofia Synagogue ticket covers an audio guide, its museum exhibition and photo permission, and I'd fit it in on the Friday or the Sunday. The Central Market Hall reopened on 23 May 2024 with a supermarket, a history zone and an events stage inside, and it stands a minute's walk from Banya Bashi.

Mondays are the awkward day. The Museum of Socialist Art closes, so does the Mineral Baths museum from November to April, and the band at Hadjidraganovite Izbi takes the night off. Its sister restaurant, Hadjidraganovite Kashti on Kozloduy Street, has its band on Mondays and rests on Tuesdays.