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LandmarkHub · 1 stop1st c. BC – 7th c. ADFree

Serdica – Sofia

Ulpia Serdica, Sardica, Сердика

city · Sofia City Province, Bulgaria

What it is
Sofia is Serdica, the Roman city that Constantine the Great is said to have called "my Rome", and its gates, walls and streets have been dug out from under the modern centre and left on public display (en.wikipedia), a few steps from the Serdika metro station (OpenStreetMap).
What you’ll see
The stops each have their own page: the Amphitheatre of Serdica, one of the largest in the eastern Roman Empire, whose eastern part is shown inside a hotel; and the Western Gate, with a mithraeum beside it.
Worth the trip?
If you are in Sofia, yes: the excavations around the Largo can be seen from the walkways around them, and the Rotunda is a whole Roman building that is still a church. Do not come expecting a standing ruin field, though.
Getting there & cost
The point on the map is the excavated city centre at the Largo. Serdika metro station is about 80 m from the Western Gate, and paid underground and surface car parks are mapped beside it (OpenStreetMap).FreeHours, tickets and parking
Low walls of rounded river stones and red brick in a sunken excavation in the city centre, with a mosque's dome and slender minaret behind it, modern office blocks and street lamps around it, under a grey sky.
The ruins of Serdica in front of the Banya Bashi Mosque. · Photo: David Stanley from Nanaimo, Canada · CC BY 2.0 · Wikimedia Commons
A sunken archaeological area paved with large irregular stones and crossed by low brick and stone walls, below street level, with steps leading down from a colonnaded government building on the left and traffic on a boulevard on the right.
The excavated streets and buildings of the Serdica complex, below the modern city centre. · Photo: Radosław Botev · CC BY 3.0 pl · Wikimedia Commons
A large weathered block of white stone with a framed panel carved with several lines of Greek capital letters, set on a stone floor against a wall.
An inscribed block shown in the Serdica fortress. · Photo: Apostoloff · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Wikimedia Commons

The stops

1 place to see, the best preserved and best known first.

See the stop on the mapWhere each one is, so you can plan your own way round.Open the map →

What is there today

The stops each have their own page: the Amphitheatre of Serdica, one of the largest in the eastern Roman Empire, whose eastern part is shown inside a hotel; and the Western Gate, with a mithraeum beside it.

The remains on display include the city walls, the eastern and western gates, baths and a bridge (en.wikipedia). Most of them lie around the Largo, the centre laid out after the Second World War: part of what was found there in 1949–1953 went on show in the open in 1954, the underpasses of 1969 opened up the level below, and the part west of the TsUM department store followed in 2012 (bg.wikipedia). The eastern gate of late antique Serdica is shown in the Largo underpass, with an inscribed block from the north gate, and the western gate can be seen in part below Washington Street, in the courtyard of the new Catholic cathedral (bg.wikipedia).

The best-preserved building is the Rotunda of St George, a domed red-brick rotunda built in the early 4th century as Roman baths and later made a church; it is held to be the oldest building in Sofia. It stands a few metres below the modern streets in the courtyard between Hotel Balkan and the Presidency, and behind its apse lie a Roman street with its drains, the foundations of a large basilica and a room with its hypocaust floor (en.wikipedia). Tombs and basilicas are also shown beneath the church of St Sofia (en.wikipedia).

Is it worth the trip?

If you are in Sofia, yes: the excavations around the Largo can be seen from the walkways around them, and the Rotunda is a whole Roman building that is still a church. Do not come expecting a standing ruin field, though. Apart from the Rotunda, Serdica is shown at the level of its foundations, in pits and underpasses between government buildings and traffic.

Getting there

The point on the map is the excavated city centre at the Largo. Serdika metro station is about 80 m from the Western Gate, and paid underground and surface car parks are mapped beside it (OpenStreetMap). The amphitheatre is about 500 m to the east.

Visiting details

Tickets
Free
Parking
Paid underground and surface car parks are mapped beside the Western Gate, about 150 m from the point (OSM node/6910664838 and way/305208976, fee=yes); Serdika metro station is about 80 m from the gate (OpenStreetMap).
On foot
At the parking

History

The city took its name from the Serdi, a Celtic tribe. Rome conquered it around 29 BC; bg.wikipedia gives 27 BC, after the campaign of Marcus Licinius Crassus. Under Trajan (98–117) it became a municipium and was renamed Ulpia Serdica. After the Costoboci burned it in 170 it received its first defensive walls, built between 176 and 180 under Marcus Aurelius, as the inscriptions above its gates record, and baths, administrative and religious buildings, a civic basilica and a large theatre followed (en.wikipedia).

When Diocletian divided the province of Dacia, Serdica became the capital of Dacia Mediterranea. The emperors Aurelian and Galerius were born here, and it was in Serdica that Galerius issued the edict of 311 that ended the persecution of Christians. In 343 the Council of Serdica met in a church on the site where St Sofia was later built. The Huns destroyed the city in 447; Justinian rebuilt it in the 6th century, and it was renamed Triaditsa (en.wikipedia).

More photographs

A round-headed archway of red brick, its doorway closed by an iron grille, set in a wall of brick and stone, with fragments of carved white stone on the ground in front.
A brick archway in the Serdica fortress. · Photo: Elena Chochkova · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Wikimedia Commons

Sources

Every fact on this page comes from the records below, each used under the licence noted.

SourceLicence
Pleiades 207439CC BY
Wikidata Q4067160CC0
Vici.org 2079CC BY-SA (text), CC0 (metadata)
OpenStreetMap way/287104635ODbL
Wikipedia (en) — SerdicaCC BY-SA 4.0
Wikipedia (bg) — Сердика (крепост)CC BY-SA 4.0
Wikipedia (en) — Church of Saint George, SofiaCC BY-SA 4.0
Wikipedia (en) — Amphitheatre of SerdicaCC BY-SA 4.0