For the first time theediscerning is hereby dabbling in foreign climes - no, not a first trip abroad, but a debut excursion into the esteemed realm of Ciao travel writers. That's what these competition thingies are for, of course.

You will increasingly see this as a location for a long weekend holiday, for it is yet another fine eastern European city falling under the tourism industry's eye. With Bulgaria possibly entering the Eurozone in 2007, the urge is to go before it all gets changed.

Next door, a nicely revamped market hall, which was probably the scene of lots of babushka-types queuing for their monthly bread rations in Soviet times, but now is so posh, airy and refitted it carries no such ghosts.

There are also Arabic mineral baths across a small park from this triumvirate, and just slightly south, one of the three attempts Sofia has at a main square. The Largo is an attractive rectangle that features the Party Building at one end, which used to be dwarfed by a Soviet star on top, and a poor statue of Wisdom at the other end, whose prominent nipples were thought better than Lenin.

South a few yards again, and one gets to a larger church in a traffic island - square two. Here seems to be the best place for the postcards home, if nothing else.

Going along our golden road you will find the other museums, first, a large national art gallery, with the third main square outside. If The Largo has a connection with Moscow's Red Square - a large mall where the state shop was (here it's Tzum, not GUM), this has too - there used to be a Mausoleum here for standing on and watching the tanks trundle past. There's no sign now, just gardens, leading to posh eateries and the national theatre. These are a good, cooling spot, watching the children play, and if you're lucky, some busking bluesmen, calling themselves, and this is no lie - Alexandrov's Ragtime Band.

The Nevski Church, which you will by now have seen on postcards, posters and so on, is a huge edifice, a roundabout among golden cobbles, gilt domes competing with that at their feet. Inside it's cleaner, brighter and fresher than some other churches, and clearly rich. You have to consider there's hardly anything in Sofia that is over 120 years old, what with infidel invaders, earthquakes and so on, so this isn't exactly ancient. It is though mightily impressive.

There are other churches, monuments and markets around the Nevski, but if we go back to our starting point back west, we can catch up on other churches - St George's, which is a rotunda, again below current floor levels, with lots of Roman walls on either side. Admission to anything - this or the poky and hoighty-toighty Sveta Petka church, or any of the museums, is barely a £ if anything.

You can then think to get out to the hills to the south of the city - and do so, if not before the Euro invasion, then before the 2012 Winter Olympics are sited there, which is the city's intention. There's a very early church if it would float your boat, and acres and acres of hiking through the woods - a bit midgy though, for some.

Once arriving anywhere in the country though the Cyrillic alphabet may well flummox. Road signs are becoming bilingual, as it were, and Sofia is the best place away from the Black Sea coast resorts for being understood in English, so you might just survive. You should survive fully intact too, it seems a most friendly and crime-free city, and the only threat might be an assumed one on derby day for the football fans.

The climate is variable, although winters and summers tend to be much like British, only more pronounced. The heat is never too much of a problem though, and being mainland Europe, is never the horrid humid mugginess England has for a summer. Theediscerning went late July, when it was supposed to be blindingly hot - it was getting on for that, but as it was high season all the locals were on holiday, the tourists weren't interested as it was warm elsewhere, and the town was lovely and empty. Two days after he moved on, the region was deluged by dreadful floods...

So, to summarise, Sofia is more of a large town than a major European city. They are only starting to build their second underground line, but for the tourist, the sites are mostly within walking distance of each other, with some busses to think of for the more adventurous going off the beaten track. (It's very flat, too.) The public transport is very cheap by local standards, as is everything throughout the country, and while some parts of town aren't as posh as you'd like - the pavements and roads more pothole than paving in many areas to the east, it's a fun, safe and cheap place to explore.