Public transport

Click HERE to see the complete map of public transport in Sofia

Metro

The subway only serves a small part of the city nowadays, but soon you should be able to go as far as Sofia Business Park in Mladost 4 by Metro and somewhat more in the future the Metro would even carry you to the foot of Vitosha mountain. You"ll find here everything regarding the project. On the same site you can also find a map with the current network.

Trams, buses and trolleys

Any place in Sofia can easily be reached by the existing network of public transport. A ticket costs 70 stotinki and can be bought in the ticket booths at most stops. When getting on the vehicle, the ticket must be validated in one of the small black boxes against the wall. A card with ten rides costs 6 leva. When you change lines during the same journey, you have to validate a new ticket for every line you use. You can als buy a ticket from the driver but then it costs 80 stotinki.

Part of the fleet has recently been replaced but some of the buses and trams still in use must have been around since decades. Due to traffic jams, especially during peak hours or when it rains or snows, public transport can be very slow and behind schedule.

Some important tram lines:

1, 7 

Central Station - Sheraton hotel - Vitosha Boulevard

2, 12 

Central station - Graf Ignatiev Street - Lozenets

6 

Central Station - NDK (National Palace of Culture) - Lozenets

Importan bus lines

84 

Sofia Airport - Sofia University 

213, 313 

Central Station - "Lavov Most" (Lions Bridge) -Tsarigradsko Chosse - Mladost 

94

Sofia University - Lozenets - Darvenitsa - Studentski Grad

Marshroutki

A particular form of public transport are the Marchroutki. The minibuses have fixed destinations just as a normal bus, but passengers can get on or of wherever they like. Just give a sign to the driver and he will let you on or of the bus. They are much faster than the big buses, but also more expensive, and you have to know Sofia pretty well in order to use them efficiently. You pay directly to the driver when getting on the vehicle.

Taxis

As in many cities also in Sofia taxis, and more particularly taxi drivers, have a bad reputation.they cheat on customers, consider Sofia as a circuit for formula 1 and the cars are older than the drivers. Unfortunately this is true for part of the taxis, but you can avoid those by contacting one of the bigger companies with an excellent reputation. OK Supertrans is such a company: when you call them you receive an SMS with the number of the taxi that will pick you up and the time he will arrive. If a taxi is not readily available they will call you back to inform you.

The drivers do not expect a real tip, but it is a custom to round up the amount to the next whole digit. So if you owe the driver 7.49 he will expect you to pay 8. On average a kilometer costs 0.50 lev (prices differ slightly from one company to another). When the taxis are parked in a row, youddon't have to take the first one, but ou can choose the one you prefer (don't choose on color though, they are all yellow).

Driving a car in Sofia

Driving in Sofia is not as bad as it may look. Traffic is somewhat chaotic, but also most of the time very slow, so you have plenty of time to concentrate on the driving. The hardest part is to find a parking space, especially during the week. Watch out for the zones where you have to pay to park your car. If you forget to pay or if you overstayed you might find a bright yellow lock on the front wheel of the car. If you are using a mobile phone from a bulgarian provider, you cans also pay by SMS. In order to activate the service you have to send a message to 1302 if your provider is Globul or Mtel, or to 1112 if your provider is Vivatel. The provider counts 1 lev per parking hour and the cost of the SMS, but will also alert you five minutes before you parking time is over.Long term parking however doesn't seem to be a problem (picture left).

 Some good advice:

The potholes in some roads are legendary. Especially when it is raining the water on the road may hide a nasty deep hole that will damage your tyres.

On a road with multiple lanes you can better avoid the right lane: either cars are parked on the lane or you will be blocked by garbage containers which for some reason are always put on the road.

You can rent a car from any of the international companies (Avis, Hertz, Budget...) at normal prices. If you have a limited budget and you don't mind to drive a less new car, you may have a look on this site. You will find a rental car for less than 20 euro per day. Most rental cars come with local insurance. If you want to cross a national border you should inform the rental company and they will deliver an international green card for a small extra fee.

Links

Looking for an particular street or building. Visit bgmaps.com. The site is in Bulgarian and English and you can search on the street name or the name of a particular place or building.

The central bus station of Sofia: all information regarding buses to other cities or even to other countries.

The site van de bulgarian railways, the Metro and the airport of Sofia.

The web site of Air Bulgaria.

For Sofia News and next week's cultural agenda click HERE