Boyana is a village on the southern edge of Sofia, tucked against the lower slopes of Mount Vitosha, and it holds a small church that changed the history of European painting, or at least its footnotes. The church is made of three parts built over several centuries, but the middle part, a tiny two-storey chapel, was decorated in 1259 for Sebastokrator Kaloyan, a local ruler, and his wife Desislava, who are painted in the narthex as donors. The frescoes show eighty-nine scenes with more than two hundred and forty human figures, and they are astonishing for their realism. The faces have individual expressions, the saints look like real people, and they predate the Italian Renaissance by generations.
Because of the fragility of the paintings, the number of visitors is limited, and the time you can spend inside is short, with groups admitted for a few minutes at a time. Book ahead if you can, and expect to wait, because the rules are enforced. Photography is not usually allowed inside. The reward is the sense of looking at the medieval Bulgarian world, with its pride and sophistication, painted on a wall the size of a modest room. UNESCO listed the church in 1979.
Getting here is a short ride from the centre of Sofia, on city roads that wind through the suburb of Boyana, past villas and embassies and onward to the mountain. Vitosha rises to 2,290 metres at Cherni Vrah, and the road up to the Aleko ski area is a great climb, with a series of bends through beech and spruce forest, with views across the city. It can be crowded on weekends, with hikers and day-trippers, and in winter, snow and ice make it a task for studded tyres. In summer, the cooler air on the mountain is a relief.
Sofia has fuel stations everywhere, and a very good range of cafes, bakeries and restaurants. Try banitsa, the cheese pastry, and shopska salad, and in autumn, the local wines. Bulgaria requires an electronic vignette for roads outside towns, so buy one for your motorbike before you leave the city. The best seasons are late spring and early autumn, when the weather is warm and the hills are green or golden.