London to Istanbul – Epic Rail Journey : Day 9

Today would see our last rail journey of the trip, the sleeper from Sofia to Istanbul. As departure, obviously, wasn’t until the evening we had pretty much a full day to wander some more and visit the remaining bars on my hit list.

It was a twenty minute stroll to the first bar of the day, 100 Beers. A bottle shop that also offered 4 beers on tap, although non Bulgarian, as well as an extensive packaged range, that helpfully opened at 10:00. I went for the draft Estonian beer and then found a can from another Bulgarian brewery I hadn’t tried. The only downside is the lack of seating, there is no problem drinking in but it is strictly vertical.

100 Beers, Sofia Center, ul. “Yuri Venelin” 1, 1000 Sofia, Bulgaria

The second bar was only a couple of streets away, Nosferatu. Not exactly a cellar bar, but a few steps down below street level. This meant that it was a cool sanctuary from the already rising temperatures. 5 beers were available on tap, and this time a couple of them were Bulgarian alongside Polish and Belgian. A decent range of packaged beers were also stocked. The beer menu gave prices in both Lev and Euros, no doubt preparing customers for the switch at the start of this year.

Nosferatu, Sofia Center, bul. “Patriarh Evtimiy” 28, 1000 Sofia, Bulgaria

Around the corner is Dissident Beer Shop, a light and airy bottle shop and bar. 6 beers on tap, with again the majority being imports. I appreciate that local beer drinkers are looking for this in the same way that I do in this country, but as a visiting beer ticker it isn’t half frustrating trying to find local beers!

Dissident Beer Shop, Sofia Center, 6th September St №36, 1142 Sofia, Bulgaria

Time was moving on and we still had a couple more places to visit so we made our way to Pivoteka Craft Beer Shop. Again a bottle shop and bar. They have 6 taps, but one of those was dispensing prosecco. The owner is also the guy behind White Stork Brewing Company and at his suggestion I bought wild fermented beer brewed in collaboration at a Dutch brewery. When I finally took the 75cl bottle to my regular bottle share I was delighted to find that it was a really good beer, well worth the effort in bringing it home. He was also very knowledgeable about all things beer and gave me information about a brewpub in Istanbul that I hadn’t stumbled across in all of my reasearch.

Pivoteka Craft Beer Shop, Sofia Center, ul. “Lyuben Karavelov” 53, 1142 Sofia, Bulgaria

And so it was on to our final Bulgarian bar, and one that had been intriguing me since I found out about, All Mountain, or more precisely All Mountain Downtown Bike Shop. A fully fledged cycle shop with everything you would expect, including the strong smell of new tyres, that also happens to have a bar in it too. The bar offered 4 beers on tap, 2 from the Bulgarian brewery Cohones, and 2 from Czechia.

All Mountain, Sofia Center, Blvd. “Cherni vrah” 13, 1000 Sofia, Bulgaria

And with that we were done in Sofia. All that remained was to retrieve our luggage from the hotel and head to the station for our train. Sofia is a fantastic city and one that I would happily return to, and hopefully will one day.

Sofia station had been undergoing renovation recently and it seemed like the sleeper train to Istanbul was pretty much the only planned departure, but they still made us sweat by announcing it at the very last minute. For this leg of the journey we would be leaving the EU and so would have to undertake 2 sets of border control. When we travelled we had to hand our passports to the rail staff who took them away for checking, but apparently this has now changed and you have to leave the train Svilengrad to complete the formalities. We had read up on what to expect and were waiting for the train to stop at Kapikule, but it turned out that we one of the first trains to use the new facilities at Edirne, and as it was new it was a bit shambolic, but at least with the formalities done we could try and get some sleep for the remainder of the journey.