Down the Market, Part 2


I like markets. They are fun, lively, full of smells and (most importantly) full of food. We went to Sofia’s Roman Wall Market today on the tram. Okay, it is Tram Time, so I am going to explain all of the ins and outs of tram travel in Bulgaria.


What is it, oh mother dear,
That looks like strawberry jam?
Hush, my darling! 'Tis your father
Run over by a tram.

 First of all, find your tram stop. These are usually fairly easy to find and the tram lines are a dead giveaway. Then go to the stop and wait. You probably will not have to wait for very long. Then along will come rumbling the tram, a sort of above-ground Metro train. After we got on, the tram driver, a lady, got off, having first had a shouting match with one of the passengers. Then, coffee and cigarette finished, she got back in the cab and drove our tram into the centre of Sofia.

Ticket to ride
Trams are very popular with the elderly in Sofia, so they are like geriatric wards on wheels.
You have to get your tram ticket punched by putting it into one of the machines fixed onto the side of the tram.

We got off at Journalists’ Square and then we walked maybe two hundred metres to the Roman Wall Market. Well, it is called the “Roman” Wall, but some people think that it was the Turks that built the bit of chunk masonry that survives. Actually there is not much of it and it does not seem to be connected or related to any other walls anywhere else in Sofia.

The inspiration for Pink Floyd?
The Roman Wall Market is a very upmarket market, so the prices are much higher than in the Ladies’ Market in Sofia. You have to pay a premium for not being ripped off by one of the dishonest stallholders in the Ladies' Market or mugged or cursed by the gypsies, I suppose. Or maybe the clientele at the Roman Wall Market are more interested in the higher things – like the Roman Wall Market prices. 

Monky business
It is all a bit trendy, chic and fashionably expensive. As it is not too far from Lozenets, the Chelsea or Hampstead of Sofia, this is not surprising.
One stall was selling products like lutenistsa from a Bulgarian monastery. Flavour of the Month? Or perhaps Flavour of the Monk?



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