Sofiya

Part of the purpose of my trip this week was to use up my train pass, part was to go somewhere warm. Sofiya didn't accomplish either of those goals, but I'm glad I stopped there. Sofiya takes the anything goes attitude of Beograd and puts it to good use. I went through the Sofiya Synagoge which was beautiful. Pictured above is the chandelier inside, the largest in Europe at 2000 kg. The synagoge is adajacent to the Romanian Orthodox Church, not far from the Sofiya Mosque. Currently, 2000 of Bulgaria's 6000 Jews live in Sofiya. Before the war, there were 52000 Jews here. But happily, they weren't killed, they moved to Isreal after its formation. Bulgaria never expelled or surendered its Jewish population. They moved there after being expelled from Spain during the Inquisition and stayed until moving to Isreal. So Bulgaria wins a place on my list of countries I highly respect.

Sofiya isn't as well set up for tourists as Beograd was, which meant I did a lot more wondering, but it was great. They have the normal sights you'd expect from a national capitol, the parliment, the national museum, the national theater or opera, huge churches, but they have something I've only seen one other place (Bratislava), a public hall. It's kind of like the open markets you see in other places, but it's indoors. It's a cool place to relax, get some food, and people watch.

I got a doner for lunch. I figure it's a Turkish food, and I'm closer to Turkey now, so they should be more authentic, right? I think it's more that each area developed their own style. The ones here don't come in the pita, they wrap it around it. they put fries in it too. It was good. More spicey. That was nice.