Whilst travelling back to Sofia for a few days before flying home, a friend sent through a short video of ‘Bulgaria’s stunningly preserved UNESCO World Heritage church frescoes’ and asked if I’d seen them. Well I hadn’t, but decided I needed to rise to the challenge.
Unfortunately Boyana Church, or to use its correct name, The church of St. Nicholas and St. Panteleimon, is located on the outskirts of Sofia, and we had several options for getting there. Having already successfully negotiated the metro, we opted for a combination of metro and the 64 bus. We quickly found the bus stop, and having got on, were congratulating ourselves on our navigation skills, when we realised it was going in the wrong direction. Having then got on the right bus, we discovered they are not tourist friendly, as stops are not announced and all signs are in Cyrillic. Fortunately, we got off at the right place and it was then a short steep walk, as the church is located in the foothills of the Vitosha mountains.
On arrival, we realised that timed tickets are required which should be bought in advance – to preserve the frescoes only 8 to 10 people are allowed in for a maximum of 10 minutes. At 10.30am, I was told I would need to wait until 12pm to buy a ticket. There were no facilities around (apart from a loo) and as it had rained, all the benches in the grounds were wet, so we retraced our steps and found a small shop which sold coffee, and we sat outside before mooching around.
My husband decided he had seen enough churches and frescoes in his time, and opted to sit it out. Having bought my ticket, I was told I could go in at 12.45pm, but decided to chance my arm and tag on to an earlier group, thinking they could only say no, but surprisingly it wasn’t a problem.
The small church was built in three stages, the 10th, 13th and 19th centuries, and having had a brief intro from a guide, we were left to wander. The frescos were interesting, but not amazing and the space was quite small. I asked about the layers and was told they belonged to different centuries, and that each time they wanted to repaint, they plastered over the originals. Two portraits of a royal couple was said to be the first time royalty had been depicted in a religious building.
Whilst I would never admit it to my husband, I did agree that I had probably seen as impressive and cheaper frescoes during my travels.
Unfortunately, there is very little photographic evidence of our achievement: the church is surrounded by tall trees, the approach has the least photographic element, and photographs of the murals are not allowed.