The wooded site
Dense trees and shade at the foot of Vitosha.
Maymay — CC BY-SA 3.0 · Κλυτίος — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Nikolai Karaneschev — CC BY 3.0 · Κλυτίος — CC BY-SA 4.0
**Mount Vitosha** first: it begins at the city limit and is reached by bus, with easy walking paths, the strange stone rivers — long runs of rounded boulders flowing down the slope — a cable car, and snow in winter. **Borisova Gradina** is wide with playgrounds and lakes. The interactive **Phenomena** science museum is designed for children specifically. The **National History Museum** has gold treasures that hold them. And this zoo. The city is very cheap, so family outings cost a fraction of what they do in Western Europe.
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Sofia Zoo lies in the south of the city at the foot of Mount Vitosha, across about twenty-three hectares among dense trees. It was founded in **1888**, making it the **oldest zoo in south-eastern Europe** — established by Prince Ferdinand, a serious naturalist and collector of plants and butterflies, and begun from his own collection. It moved to its present site in 1984. The situation today is honestly middling: some enclosures have been rebuilt and are spacious and adequate, others remain old and cramped, and it draws criticism from animal welfare organisations. It is **below Western European zoo standards** and you should know that before going. What it is good for: a very cheap family outing on a wide shaded site with small children, its charges among the lowest in Europe. Anyone sensitive to how animals are kept may find parts of it uncomfortable.
Dense trees and shade at the foot of Vitosha.
The rebuilt parts are spacious and adequate.
Bulevard Srebarna 1, Sofia