I have to apologize again, quite some time has passed since last article on my blog. I think, in Winter I won’t manage a higher interval, we will see. I haven’t told you yet, but I’m going back to Vienna and Graz for Christmas, and I’m really looking forward to it. It’s not, that I’m not enjoying the time here, but often I’m feeling a bit lonely here. Sure, I’m living in a nice flat with nice people and I found some new friends, but still I’m a little bit of an outsider here. Furthermore you often meet nice people and spend some time with them, but then they go away again, back to their countries, where they are coming from. When I moved into my flat we were five people, in middle of January we will be only two if we don’t find new flat-mates (which we should, because we can’t afford the flat for only two).
You wonder, why I haven’t told anything about Sofia yet? Hmm … I was asked from many friends before I came here: „Why Sofia?“. I think, I understand now. Sofia could be a nice city, if the municipality would want to. It sad to say, but it’s the least appealing city in Bulgaria I have seen. What I miss most in Sofia is a central pedestrian zone. I think the Vitosha Boulevard, which you can see on one of the pictures, should be a place like this. The road looks like the municipality decided ten years ago to block most of the car traffic and painted some cycling road. But that’s all they changed. There are shops and cafes, but none of them looked interesting to me when I was searching one there (which was during my first weeks in Sofia).
Sofia is strongly in the hand of car traffic. Every other means of transportation (tramway, trolley-buses, buses, cycling, walking) are unworthy (but this is actually not a surprise for me, it was an assumption that I had before I came to Sofia). On the second picture you can see a good example. It’s a cycling and walking way next to a small river south to the centre of Sofia, which has been renovated in the last weeks. Apparently the municipality didn’t know how to continue, because there’s a large crossing there, and the walking traffic has to use the underpass. The bad thing: You have to run over the road from there to come to the underpass, or you go back 100m and pass a bridge to the other side of the river.
The third really annoying thing is the fact, that the pavements are used for parking. That’s something that already annoyed me in Burgas. For me it’s not a problem, I’m healthy and can take care of myself even if I walk on the road (which often is the only option). But for older and disabled people and for parents with children this must be a big problem.
So, enough rant about Sofia, time to write some positive things. I think, these ‚Blocks‘ for social housing are better as their reputation. What I’ve seen the layout of the flats are quite good, they usually have two balconies, a living-room, kitchen, separate bath-room and toilet – and bedrooms for sure. And around the Blocks is a lot of green area with small shopping centres in between. They just don’t look very appealing from the outside. And the parks in Sofia are pretty good, and many of them have been renovated in the last years. I hope, I can show you some pictures later, maybe in Spring when it will be greener as now.
