Saint Sofia Church, Sofia

The tomb of Honorius is closed for renovations, but we toured the rest of the archaeological complex under the church. Watch the introductory video as that will do you how the building changed over the centuries. Some decent early Christian mosaics and frescoes.

The church has been mostly rebuilt in modern times, but the necropolis from Roman times are fascinating. The lady on the desk Elisabetta was very helpful at explaining the site and there is a short video which explains the site. You can see the mosaics of the very first church which was tiny...

Visiting St Sofia was underwhelming at first but it got much better when visiting the crypt. The access is not made for people having difficulties walking as there is a lot of stairs and the roof might be low on some areas. The video teaching us on the evolution of the church construction was quite interesting to put in perspective what you can see. I wished they had put that video closer to the entrance rather than quasi at the end of the path. Also there was no space for people to sit and watch the video so, really, it better be placed somewhere else. There are nice mosaics towards the end of the walk, after passing many tombs with flat and arched tops giving an indication of when they were built (together with find artefacts not displayed anymore). While in some churches in other countries the bones are visible, there everything is removed... Which rather remove curiosity and amazement from the tourist. Everything is apparently put in a museum... While it would have been so much nicer to keep findings in their original context. The place could also benefit from me pictures and descriptions of how it was looking at the time of the discovery, the intention for digging, the challenges encountered, etc. Build a story while walking through the history of the crypt.

I visited the crypts on Wednesday 4 January 2023 and the entrance was free. The crypts were much larger than I expected and full of tombs and graves which was what I wanted to see. There is also a quite good mosaic, which I think is why other people visit and worth a look. The church above is less ornate than others but it's high open red brick ceiling is quite nice There are lots of stairs and currently you need to go back through the same path to exit, so if you have mobility issues it might be difficult. I took photos, but for whatever reason I think videos are forbidden.

The best of Sofia is most of their Church's are for free, this one is not an exception, I gave only 3 stars because I wanted to visit the catacombs but they are now under renovation the same with the central Market, sadly there is no information about it on the internet.