Banishora, Sofia — Area Guide & Where to Stay

What are the main landmarks in Banishora?

The quarter wears its landmarks quietly. The Orthodox church of St. Andrei Parvozvani rose over the streets in 1926, and the older Princess Clementine Hospital had opened its wards back in 1891 on the ground that later carried the district's medical and civic buildings. Lavov most anchors the east.

That bridge over the Vladaiska Reka gathers the trams, the trolleybuses out of the Nadezhda depot and the crowds bound for the Central Railway Station, while the walls of the Central Sofia Prison close off the northern reach of the grid.

What is the history of Banishora?

Banishora predates modern Sofia by centuries. A record from 1550 names a bridge called Bagnasol on this ground, and Ottoman documents of the sixteenth century mark out the quarter that vineyards would cover through the century after. The name reads as slow water.

Felix Kanitz traced the remains of an ancient fortress with corner towers here in 1871, and the arrival of the railway pulled the district into the growing capital, its low streets filling in behind the yards of the Central Railway Station. The Bagnasol crossing gave the quarter its shape.

Where is Banishora?

Banishora fills the northwestern corner of Sofia's Serdika district, a low residential grid bounded by the Vladaiska Reka and Slivnitsa Blvd to the south, Knyaginya Maria Luiza Blvd to the north, Hristo Botev Blvd to the east and Gabrovo St to the west. The railway hems its edge.