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The eurozone’s newest member is transforming. Until this year, Bulgaria’s tourism appeal was largely in cheap summer beach resorts, but together with its new currency comes a strategy to position the Balkan nation as a four-seasons destination with everything from beaches to ski stations, pilgrimage trails and wellness retreats.
I visited in the dying days of the lev in late November last year, attracted by the prospect of a cheap city break in the capital Sofia. It wasn’t hard to see that the city is entering a new chapter, and not just because it was about to enter the eurozone.
Many Gen Z and millennials who left the city in search of opportunities in London and Berlin over the last decade have returned, opening restaurants with a modern take on Bulgarian cuisine and chic wine bars selling excellent domestic varieties.
“After covid a lot of people who lived abroad came back and started opening their own businesses with what they had seen elsewhere,” Denitsa, owner of natural wine bar Nectar, told me.
She was living in Nice when the pandemic struck, and like many other Bulgarians, decided to come back to Sofia. “It started with places doing speciality coffees and bakeries, which was very brave,” she added. “But now it has taken off. There is a growing creative community. Everyone wants to launch something.”
Shortly after my trip, this hungry and ambitious generation took to the streets en masse at the end of November, forming the largest protests seen in the country for decades and projecting the words “Resignation” and “Mafia Out” onto the parliament building.
Within two weeks, they had prompted the sweeping resignation of the government. Gen Z has no lived experience of the country’s communist regime (1944 to 1989) nor memories of the economic collapse that followed in the late 1990s.
It is also a generation born into the internet and were quick to use online messaging to unify behind aspirations for everything from better road safety to health care and improved job opportunities. They want meaningful change and they are willing to graft for it.
An enormous and dramatic mural tucked away on a side street in Sofia (Photo: Sanya Burgess)For visitors, that youthful energy is visible in the spectacular street art all around the city (there are about 100 murals), and in the cultural district known as KvARTal (“quarter”), which regularly hosts indie design and film festivals.
This forward-looking ambition sits snuggly alongside Sofia’s storied history; walking around even aimlessly will lead you to open-air Roman ruins or centuries-old churches.
Public transport – which includes metro, buses, trams and trolleybuses – is clean and affordable, with a single journey costing roughly 70p. Fares are falling slightly now that the euro is in place.
But Sofia is also remarkably walkable and easy to navigate, with almost all roads seeming to lead back to pedestrianised Vitosha Boulevard, which is lined with boutiques and restaurants.
Vitosha Boulevard is lined with cafes and restaurants (Photo: Iakov Filimonov/Getty Images)Bulgaria is becoming more popular with British tourists, with an increase of around 5 per cent of British stays recorded last year by the Ministry of Tourism in comparison with the previous year.
This is likely in large part due to how much further a pound stretches. Indeed, Bulgaria was crowned the best-value destination for Britons last year, according to a report from market research company Mintel and foreign exchange bureau Eurochange.
This meant I could splash out. While swimming in a sleek spa pool, I felt almost smug at the £105 I’d paid for a night at the five-star Sense Hotel. Upstairs, my room had a walk-in wardrobe plus about 50 different light settings to ensure precisely the right ambiance for any situation. Even the hallways smelled delightful and the rooftop bar delivered great views of the city, notably the gold domes of the vast Saint Alexander Nevsky Cathedral.
The pool at Sense Hotel spa (Photo: Sanya Burgess)I had also spotted rooms for £75 at the Hotel Sentro, around 20 minutes away near Vitosha Boulevard and decided to stay there for a couple of nights too. It was clean, smartly designed and functional – with the bonus of being directly opposite a wine bar.
Yet, despite the bars, spas and sleek hotels, it was hard to escape the fact that I was in the capital of the EU’s poorest country. Walking on pockmarked pavements was like taking part in some sort of Crystal Maze challenge. Buildings with missing windows and collapsed roofs stand next to freshly spruced up properties.
But the streets are, largely, very tidy and I felt safe walking around at night. People were very friendly – one man saw me gawping at the incredible box of chocolates he was holding and came into the restaurant I was in to give me one.
Downtown Sofia and Alexander Nevski Cathedral with its gold domes (Photo: Media Trading Ltd/Getty Images)One of Sofia’s biggest selling points is the large number of excellent places to eat, from Mexican and pizza joints to Turkish and Greek spots, as well as restaurants serving modern and traditional Bulgarian cuisine.
One of my favourite meals was a set lunch at L’etranger, which has been run by a French-Bulgarian couple for the past 20 years serving food from their respective countries.
It cost around £40pp for three courses, drinks and a generous tip. My husband and I shared two glasses of cremant and wine, generous bowls of French onion soup, followed by pork in a rich, creamy sauce and a cheese board to end.
A glass of wine in a bar can cost as little as £3, and the type of conspicuously trendy nightlife that usually comes at a premium in the UK is far cheaper in Sofia. I enjoyed a beer and my husband a sizable whisky which came to less than £6 between us at Hambara, where one of the gimmicks is that you must knock to be let in. The other is that the bar has no electric lights, and the candlelight is made all the darker by cigarette smoke.
The writer about to tuck into an authentic French onion soup at L’etranger (Photo: Sanya Burgess)The free-to-enter live music bars ranged from a bit of everything (Schroedinger Bar) to blues (Delta Blues Bar) to rock (Rock’n’Rolla bar), as well as clubs playing mainstream hits and Eastern European turbo folk.
A passion and excitement is palpable in the KvARTal district within what was once the city’s Jewish quarter. The streets are a little forlorn, but staggered among them are new bars and restaurants, such as the Next Page cocktail bar and the Communist-themed com.bar.
The glass-fronted Bash Hedonist restaurant pairs excellent wines with well-presented and delicious plates, such as Bulgarian sausages, pan-Asian curries and miso vegetables. The patrons here looked as if they had poured out of the near-by printing and art studios.
I loved the Ж Jazz Room, a sophisticated listening bar with an impressive speaker set-up and cinema-style seats set to face. As with many places I found in Sofia, it was an enjoyable way to spend a few hours with a glass of well-priced wine.
How to get there
Ryanair, Wizz Air and British Airways all fly from the UK to Sofia.
Where to stay
The writer was offered a reduced rate at Sense Hotel Sofia, which has doubles from £105 (€121.67), room only.
Hotel Sentro has doubles from £79, room only.
More information
visitsofia.bg
visitbulgaria.com
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