Europe 2019 - Day 38 (Part 1)

13 June 2019, Thursday

Today we decided to take it easy and spend the day in Sofia visiting sites we missed yesterday instead of venturing out to other districts in Bulgaria. 

For breakfast we went to a place nearby to eat a typical local breakfast, consisting of banitza, a traditional Bulgarian dish prepared by layering a mixture of whisked eggs and pieces of cheese between filo pastry and then baking it in an oven. It was just so-so for me, nothing great or special but it’s really popular with the locals here. 

I had a coffee while my friend had a local favourite, boza. I tasted it and luckily I didn’t buy it, it’s really not my cup of (coffee) tea. It is a fermented beverage popular in many parts of the world including, among others, Turkey, Albania, Bosnia, Serbia, Azerbaijan, Romania and Bulgaria. It is malt based and differs from country to country. In Bulgaria it is made of wheat and millet. It has a thick consistency, a low alcohol content (around 1%), and a slightly acidic sweet flavor. I didn’t like it. 

Then we visited the Boyana Church which is at the outskirts of Sofia - about 1 hour plus by bus but we had to change buses in between. We were waiting for the bus like any good tourist would, when a kind old man who could barely speak English tried his best to inform us that the bus we were waiting for would not come - it had been in some sort of accident. Of course, there was a SMALL notice pinned on the bus stop pillar, but it was in Cyrillic writing. But anyway, such a kind man. If not for his kindness, we would’ve been waiting there for God knows how long. 

So we figured out an alternative route and made our way to the Church. The Church is situated at the foot of the Vitosha mountain and was built in 3 stages - in the 10th century, and later enlarged in the 13th and 19th centuries. Outside, there is the grave of Queen Eleonora of Bulgaria (1860-1917) who used to tend to the garden here, with the epitaph “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.” The Church looked old and cosy from the outside, but it’s real treasure was in the inside - mural paintings made in 1259 which are said to be masterpieces of Bulgarian medieval art, and are well preserved. It is considered to be the predecessor of European Renaissance art, which is why it is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. 

We were there at 11 a.m. and wanted to purchase tickets to go in but the earliest time they would give us was at 2 p.m. And we could only be in there for 10 minutes, no photographs allowed. The things is, I don’t see that many people around so I really cannot understand why they couldn’t give us an earlier time, especially if it’s only going to be for 10 minutes. All I can say is that they’re not very good businessmen. The conclusion is that we didn’t go in and see the paintings from 1259.

So then we headed back to the city as I wanted to go inside the Rotunda of St George. There is supposed to be five layers of partially preserved frescoes on the walls: the oldest a Roman-Byzantine with floral motifs from the 4th century; the second in Bulgarian medieval style with angels from the 10th century; the third from the 11th and 12th centuries – a frieze with prophets and frescoes depicting the Ascension, Assumption, etc.; the fourth is from the 14th century with a donor's portrait of a bishop north of the entrance, and the fifth with Islamic ornamental motifs when the church became a mosque during the Ottoman Empire. 

(In the middle of the 19th century, the Rotunda, along with the St Sophia Basilica and the Sofia Mosque (today the National Archaeological Museum) were abandoned by the Muslims. Not long later, the Bulgarians reclaimed its original purpose of a Christian church).

The most outstanding among all the murals is the one from the 9th or 10th century, painted under the dome. It is the an image of an angel with an exceptionally inspired human face, which showcases the high artistic mastership present in the First Bulgarian Kingdom.

I saw some floral motifs, the angel on the dome, angels and prophets, but try as I might, I was unable to find any Islamic ornamental motifs from the Ottoman Empire.