Good long night's sleep (aided by Amitriptyline & Motofene . . . ). Woke to find hip fine and shoulder remarkably less sore.
Set off at a gentle pace in light drizzle just after 8am. For about 30km, the ride ran within a 100m of the Iskar River; dams in at least three places creating small resevoirs. A welcome undemanding ride.
Sofia's suburbs spread wide - a good 10 miles before I got to my hotel, the grandly-named but less-grandly-set-up L'Opera House Hotel - with major pipe-laying obstructing thoroughfare along much of my route into the city.
Had checked in, showered and dressed well before mid-day.
Set off to find the Post Office, where - as I have become accustomed to on my Silk Road rides - me asking for postage stamps put them all in a flurry. But eventually I persuaded one of the cashiers to part with some of her precious stamps - which she counted and recounted at least half a dozen times before reluctantly handing them over.
Thence (with Katie on my shoulder again) to the Royal Palace Art Gallery. Nicely modest in size - and (as Churchill we know remarked) a lot to be modest about.
Nearby, the Russian Church of St Nicholas boasted three golden tulips on its roof (probably not at their best in the overcast day), with the interior candle-smoke darkened and poorly lit. Likewise the Alexander Nevsky Cathedral.
Also nearby, the much better lit Santa Sophia Basilica, first built in the 4thC, then built over & over through the centuries in which it was variously a church, overrun by the Huns & Goths, rebuilt as a church several times (in the 6thC the Romans rebuilt it again with the cross design of the basilica - becoming a much sought-after burial sitr), a mosque under the Ottomans from the 16th to 19thC, destroyed by earthquakes, a warehouse, a ruin - and then, from the beginning of the 20thC, reconstructed in its present form. Glimpses of the building's previous lives are shown in the beautifully curated subterranean levels.
Thence to a richly-deserved coffee & cake, and back to my hotel to escape the falling rain.