The best road cycling routes in Sofia-City Region

The parking lot is a great starting point

A real highlight. A must-see.

Architecture The first church had three naves, with three bell towers resting on eight-sided drums, and two bell towers. The church is surrounded on three sides by colonnades with arches topped with semicircular domes. After the liberation from Ottoman rule, Prince Dondukov-Korsakov presented the church with eight bells. A new bell tower was built for them outside the church building, facing southeast. In 1898, the church was rebuilt by the architect N. Lazarov.

The church is believed to have been built in the 10th century and, like other Sofia churches of the time, had a stone base and a wooden structure above it. In the second half of the 14th century, these wooden churches were made of stone. It is unknown why only the Hagia Nedelja remained wooden, and the church continued to exist in this form until the mid-19th century. In 1578, the German traveler Stefan Gerlach visited Sofia and provided a list of Sofia's twelve churches. Among them was the church with the Greek name Kiriaki. In the 19th century and the first decades of the 20th century, the church was also called Sveti Kral (Holy King) because it housed the relics of the Serbian King Stefan Milutin Urosh II, who had healing powers. The church suffered damage in the great earthquake of 1858, and in the early 1850s, the Sofia Diocese and the city parish built a new church in its place, designed by Master Ivan Bojanin, with funds raised by the Christian citizens of Sofia. Until the construction of the St. Alexander Nevsky Church monument, Hagia Nedelya Church was a cathedral. Exarch Joseph I is buried in the southern part. After the destruction of Hagia Nedelya Church as a result of the communist terrorist act against the Tsarist family on April 16, 1925, a competition for its restoration was announced. The competition was won by the architects I. Vasilyov and Dimitur Tsolov. It was completed in 1931 and solemnly consecrated two years later. The new building had five domes and a dominant bell tower on the west side. The exterior was decorated with rows of red tiles. The surrounding land was relocated to a lower level, placing the building on a terrace accessible via a stone staircase. The church, restored according to a design by the architects Vasilyov and Tsolov, is a single-room building with a kul dominating the entire naos. The bell tower rises above the vestibule. The exterior of the church is faced with tuff stone.

The Banya Bashi Mosque is the only Muslim temple in Sofia. It was built on the initiative of Kadi Seyfullah Effendi in the third quarter of the 16th century. This mosque is a magnificent example of the single-chamber mosques built during the so-called Golden Age of Ottoman architecture and art. The diameter of the dome and the length of the interior walls are 15 meters. In front of the mosque is an open antechamber with three pointed arches; it is covered with small hemispherical domes supported by four monolithic stone columns with stalactite capitals, which are very typical of Islamic architecture. To the right of the antechamber is the minaret, which harmonizes well with the body of the mosque. On the southwest wall is an extension, originally intended as the tomb of Kadi Seyfullah Effendi, but was later reused as a library and is now used as a service room for the mosque. The dome and the walls of the hall were painted in the 19th century. Adjacent to the mosque was a large double bath (sifte hamam in Turkish and banya in Bulgarian), which is associated with its name. Since 1998, the mosque has been designated an immovable cultural asset of national importance. Its care is entrusted to the District Mufti of Sofia. The building has undergone several renovations, the most recent of which was completed in 2018, and it has functioned in this form ever since.

I asked ChatGPT: "Who is Saint Nicholas?". The answer was a very appealing text with lots of information about the well-known and popular Bishop of Myra. Then I asked ChatGPT: "Who is Saint Nicholas FOR YOU?" The answer: "As an artificial intelligence, I have no personal convictions, feelings or belief systems. My answers are based on information I received during my training." How good that we humans exist, I thought. What would this world be without actions that are done out of personal conviction, without people who empathize and without the belief that this world is created for the good. It seems to me that the crucial question of today is: "Who is Saint Nicholas for YOU?" (Text: Tobias Wiegelmann)

The cathedral is one of the symbols of the Bulgarian capital Sofia. It was built in memory of Tsar Alexander II and the Russian soldiers who died liberating Bulgaria from Ottoman rule in the Russo-Ottoman War of 1877-78. The visit is free!

Part of the Panorama lake