St Vlas via Sofia

Cheap Flight!

Decided to fly to Sofia for my September 2016 visit to St Vlas with one of my sisters.  To be honest I’ve been wanting to see the capital of Bulgaria for quite a while and when I checked out the flight prices with Ryanair – Birmingham to Sofia airport – it was too good an opportunity to miss!  We paid £12.99 to fly out and £16.99 to return.  Ok, this didn’t include any extras such as luggage, priority boarding etc. but at the end of the day, we always end up taking too many clothes so this time we were really good and managed to pack all of our belongings into a cabin-size bag so it didn’t cost us any extra (plus it made us much more organised).

Long Way Away From St Vlas

I hear you say.  Yes, admittedly it is a long way from St Vlas but there are several ways to get there (which I’ll talk about in my next post).  Plus, why not class this as part of your holiday and spend a day or so in this wonderful city before heading to the coast – which is exactly what we did.  Our flight didn’t arrive until the early hours so we booked a couple of nights at the Hotel Rila which cost approximately £40 for the room, per night, including breakfast (via Booking.com). They kindly arranged a taxi to pick us up from the airport. The hotel, albeit slightly dated, was in a perfect location in the centre of Sofia so was a good choice for us.  We were able to spend a full day looking around before heading to St Vlas the following day.  Here’s just a few photos I took during our brief stay.  I hope to take more next time (yes – I will most definitely go again and spend a few more days there) …

Sofia Hotel Balkan (luxury hotel)

Side view Sofia Hotel Balkan

The fascia on this building has been painted on!

On Our Way Back

We returned to Sofia the day before we were due to fly back to Birmingham.  The bus we had bought return tickets for from Vlas to Sofia wouldn’t have got us there in time for our flight back, but who wants to sit on a bus for 7 hours and then on a place for another 3 hours on the same day?!  This time we stayed at the Hotel Ramada which was really close to the bus station so suited our needs perfectly.  We booked this hotel last minute as the one we originally booked wasn’t our cup of tea (that’s another story!).  It cost us £62 for the night, including breakfast.  The room was very nice but have to say, the breakfast was chaotic!  We’d stay there again though (must remember to go on Trip Advisor and leave my opinion on Hotel Ramada, Sofia and for Hotel Rila)