I've got friends visiting Sofia this weekend which I am really excited about. I love having a chance to show Sofia off.  Only we didn't plan/communicate very well so Saturday I am going to Koprivshtitsa on Saturday night and they're flying in from Budapest on Saturday afternoon. Ooops! Needless to say, we've got plans to meet on Sunday.

It seems to me the 10 must sees in Sofia are as follows:
<ol>
	<li><strong>Alexander Nevski Cathedral</strong> (and the crypt with ions!) The building is beautiful with the stone construction, the gold and green roof and the wrought iron gates.  And the<strong> icon museum</strong> is both cool and a little over the top. Clearly my austere protestant background adds to the sense that the icons are fascinating and a bit wild in their depictions of different saints. The Eastern Orthodox church <strong>St. Sofia</strong> is right next to the cathedral and worth popping into if only to look into floor and see earlier remains of a church build on the same site.</li>
	<li><strong>Ivan Vazov National Theater</strong> and the park in front of the theater. The theater is imposing sitting on one end of a pretty little park. On the far end of the park is the <strong>Sofia City Art Gallery</strong> which is free and usually has art worth checking out. <!--more--></li>
	<li><strong>The Russian Church </strong>is beautiful both inside and outside. It's also pretty hard to miss with the onion domes.</li>
	<li>The National Art Gallery--<strong>the Former Tsar's Palace</strong> and Toba &amp; Co. You might not feel like checking out either the gallery or the ethnographic museum but you can have a good cup of coffee in the cafe/bar behind the palace <strong>Toba &amp; Co</strong> and enjoy the architecture of the building.</li>
	<li>The <strong>Banya Bashi mosque</strong> and the <strong>baths</strong>--between the minaret and the bright colors of the baths the two form a pleasing addition to downtown Sofia. You can pay a small fee and enter the mosque but while there's no longer a big fence around the baths you can't go in.</li>
	<li>One of my favorite museums in the city is in an old mosque the <strong>Archaeological Museum</strong>. It has a great collection of Bulgaria's treasures--and it's not too big making it easy to see and enjoy the collection without feeling overwhelmed.  Oh and there's lots of awesome stuff made out of gold here--you know if you're into that kind of thing.</li>
	<li><strong>Zhenski Pazar or the Women's market</strong> is a startling contrast to live on <strong>Vitosha Street</strong>. You can find all sorts of fruits and veggies as well as a range of different clothing and shoe stalls at the market. My favorite is the Bulgarian pottery. I am becoming a regular at these stands. While Vitosha is supposedly Sofia's nicest and fanciest shopping street. There are a lot of western shops along this street but I am not convinced it's the nicest.</li>
	<li>At the far end of <strong>Borisova Gradina</strong> there's a really great communist monument that I always get a kick out of. And unlike a lot of former communist countries, it hasn't been moved. It's just been heavily vandalized.</li>
	<li><strong>NDK </strong>otherwise known as the National Palace of Culture. This building is not beautiful but it's got, um, character.  Build in the late 1970's and early 1980's you go to admire the architecture and the concrete required to build this building.</li>
	<li>Anything and everything in and around <strong>Graf Ignativ</strong> Street from the outdoor fruit and veggie stands to the book stalls a little further up the street to the church of the seven saints and a slew of restaurants, cafes and little shops.</li>
</ol>
Thoughts? Anything else that should be added to the list?