After visiting the Rila Monastery, Bulgaria's most important UNESCO World Heritage Site, in the Day 8 of this Leaving All Behind series, I decided to visit Bulgaria's National Art Gallery "Kvadrat 500", and some other corners of Sofia city.
Fast breakfast and heading to the National Art Gallery
I use to have abundant and healthy breakfasts since years and is a thing I recommend everyone to do (meaning having abundant breakfasts, regular lunches and light/no dinners), as well as intermitent fasting (wich thing I also do since years), but during this trip my diet was quite irregular and couldn't have all that I wanted or my body needed.
One product that helped with all that irregularity in the diet (and in the guts), throughout almost every country I crossed, was yogurts: they are a very good resource, as long as you are not lactose intolerant, of course.
On my way to visit the National Art Gallery, I walked again near the co-cathedral of the Diocese of Sofia and Plovdiv and grabbed a nice coffee and a piece of homemade traditional banitza pie at Caffetteria bakery.
Despite the whole building complex of the National Gallery dating from the 19th century, the Kvadrat 500 is the largest and newest building and was opened on 2015.
Distributed in 28 halls and 4 levels, more than 42,000 museum pieces by Bulgarian and foreign artists are exhibited, some of those collections dating back to 1890.
The entrance ticket fee is 10 BGN (5 EUR).
Inside Kvadrat 500
YouTube Short of the large-scale portrait of Princess María Luisa de Borbón-Parma by Ivan Murkvichka: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/TsHsHJtUiNI
The nice National Art Gallery is quite large (and absolutely worth it visiting it), and I think it took me like couple of hours to see all I wanted to see.
I'm gonna highlight here now some of the works I liked the most or that caught more my attention.
YouTube Short of the amazing "Lucifer" masterpiece by the German symbolist, Franz von Stuck (1863–1928), in room 10: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/9BpSNwuW4no
YouTube Short of room with the figures of Spanish Christianization in the East Indies (15th-16th centuries): https://www.youtube.com/shorts/lfUisVIlhwM
The room 26 hosts a permanent exposition of more than 40 artowrks from Svetlin Rusev, artist himself and director of the National Art Gallery during the late 80s, commemorating more than 90 years since his birth (1933 - 2018).
YouTube Short in the room 26 dedicated to Svetlin Rusev: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/XNWobkSWZHk
Leaving Kvadrat 500
After enjoying this amazing Bulgarian National Art Gallery I headed towards having some snack and doing some groceries for lunch.
YouTube Short ordering some takeaway food at the supermarket: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/kmfv8PF6CR8
*Note: In the YouTube Short I was saying "Hello, good morning" (Здравей, добро утро) yet in a very poor Russian pronuntiation since were one of my first words in the language.
After lunch I took another walking through the city to clear myself and visit some other places of Sofia.
While walking through the Vitosha Boulevard got hungry and stopped at Vitosha Street Bar & Dinner to have a bite.
In the next article I'm visiting the St. Alexander Nevsky Cathedral, symbol of Sofia and main tourist attraction of the city.
Leaving All Behind series: Day 1, Day 2 (Part 1), Day 2 (Part 2), Day 3, Day 4, Day 5 (Part 1), Day 5 (Part 2), Day 6, Day 7, Day 8.
Photographs were taken with my Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra 5G camera.
YouTube Shorts recorded with my Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra 5G camera.
Image of the Kvadrat 500 National Art Gallery location is a screenshot from Google Maps.
Sources on which I relied to give some accurate info about all related to Kvadrat 500 National Art Gallery and some monuments of Sofia city: (1), (2), (3), (4).
National Art Gallery Kvadrat 500 Website.
Sofia Municipality Tourism Website.