A few years back I wandered Sofia for a few stolen days after some forgettable meetings. Old cities pull me in, places with cracked walls, too much history, and zero interest in pretending. Wanderlust isn’t a trend. It’s the only honest addiction left. The best part of being human, not that I’m admitting to being one of you. I’m not. I just walk your streets and write your stories.
You land somewhere between the East and what’s left of the West, where the air smells like wood smoke and iron, and the streets wear the same scars as the people.
The city doesn’t welcome you.
It just exists.
Unbothered. Ancient. Modern. Alive.
By day, it’s all saints and stone.
The kind of glory that stares back at you from a thousand hand-painted faces lined up on a cobbled path.
You can buy Jesus here.
Barter for him under a birch tree while pigeons argue in the distance and tourists wander past like ghosts without language.
Icons sell next to landscapes. Hope sells next to memory.
And then the sun goes down. That’s when she gets real.
Everything softens. The marble turns gold. The windows flicker with low light and last chances. You walk alone past storefronts that aren’t trying to impress you. You duck into places with no signs, no hype. Just warmth and the hum of a room full of stories.
You drink. You eat. You eavesdrop. You write.
Somewhere, a string of lights blinks above a table for two and the air wraps around your coat like it knows you're staying too long.
You pass monuments too large to ignore, lit like they're still watching. A horse on a pedestal. A man made of stone. You look up, and he doesn’t look back.
But the city does.
It watches you when you sleep behind glass in a room that feels like a dream, clean lines and silence above the street that won’t ever fully quiet. The kind of place where you leave the curtains open because the night is more honest than your thoughts.
And somewhere down the alley, a kitchen closes. A candle burns out. A man zips his coat and walks home slow.
Sofia doesn’t care that you came.
But if you listen, really listen,
you’ll hear her say one thing:
Don’t come to be seen.
Come to see.
Read this on Substack where it first appeared — if you’re into that sort of thing.
