A giant snail is climbing up the hill
Sofia day trips – the Profligate Snail house is in fact a 5-storey building shaped like a snail. It goes up the hill in the district of Simeonovo, in the capital of Bulgaria – Sofia. The architect, who doesn’t like to be known, definitely had a great vision. Or we can easily call him an eccentric. How can one design a building which has the shape of a snail!?
A little information for you, our guests. When you are having our walking guided tours Sofia and you like to see the snail home do not try to touch the snail’s horns. First, it’s quite dangerous to climb up there and second – even if you touch them, they don’t go in.
An eccentric architect’s masterpiece in Sofia day trips
The architect of that interesting house didn’t want people to know him or her. So, we will simply call them the architect of the snail house. The architect of the snail house started building the house at the end of the ‘80s. It did take a decade to finish it. The architect of the snail house had also designed the golf courses in Japan and France. He had as well worked over the Palace of the Emir of Kuwait. But I don’t think he built anything in the cosmopolitan city of Istanbul. Since it was a territory reserved for Mimar Sinan. A suggestion for you. Visit Istanbul for Istanbul day trip and find out whether or not the architect of the snail house has ever built anything there.
I am sure that even the workers involved in the construction of the building didn’t have any idea about the shape of the house while they were building it.
Why snail? Why he chose this particular place? We simply don’t know.
What we know is this is the success of the architect. He might have had a pet snail when he was a child. Or the calmness of the snail might have also attracted the architect. We leave it to your imagination to find the answers to all the Why? questions.
For the construction of the house only high quality lightweight and environmentally friendly materials had been used. There are no straight walls, corners and edges. People also say that there is no brick used for the construction.
When you go to the rear of the building, you can also see butterflies on its back.
The Profligate Snail Home, one of the symbols of Sofia day trips
Not only the outside of the snail house differs from the standard but also the interior pushed the limits with the ancient antique furniture that belonged to the owner’s ancestors with funny heating radiators in the form of a frog, a ladybug or a pumpkin.
It might have been the passion of one person in the beginning but now the snail house became one of the centres of attraction, even one of the symbols of Sofia.
We need to encourage people who have a different, positive and creative look at life. We need to support them to do what they do – reveal the good side of things. Contact us and let’s do it together.
In case it suits your tailor-made Sofia day trips, we surely would like to take you there and push the limits of your imagination. You would not have the chance to see the architect of the Profligate Snail Home but definitely you can see and touch his dream.
We are specialists on doing tailor-made tours. We are also so happy to introduce Turkey, Istanbul & Ephesus tours, to all our visitors. To get more information about Ephesus, please check Ephesus walking tour.
