Sofia Between the Antique and the Modern

For nine thousand years people have built up and round this city in search of an aspect that would correspond with their faith, their mentality, and with the central place their settlement had attained upon the important roads both from Mid-Europe to Asia Minor and from the Aegean Sea to the lands beyond the Danube. The city has had a lot of names but the first of them that has remained in historical records - Serdonpolis - was related to the Thracians from a local tribe, the Serds. It seems out of doubt that its inhabitants have chosen its place here because of the warm-water springs, the flat plain and the ring of mountains that surround it from all sides. Then, they have turn it into a powerfully attractive centre.