Dear Eurocrat,

We understand you’re probably nervous about leaving the snug brasseries of Brussels and heading to Europe’s wild east for the Bulgarian presidency. Relax. Sofia has rough edges but you’ll have a blast as long as you follow the key rules laid out here in our survival guide.

No one is going to pretend that Bulgaria’s capital is an earthly paradise. Superficially, it’s a gritty city of socialist-era tower blocks, scrawny stray dogs, potholed sidewalks and occasionally dangerous underpasses.

Look a little closer though, and Sofia has profound charm and lashings of Balkan soul. We will guide you past the pirate taxis to reveal a city of priceless Thracian treasures, €5 opera tickets, funky folk-jazz fusion and a somewhat unexpected organic food boom.

1) Before you pack, get your head round the head-shaking.

You need to prepare psychologically for the biggest culture shock of them all: Bulgarians shake their heads when they mean “yes.”

The head-shaking anomaly will be doubly unsettling in your formal meetings.

You might imagine that this topsy-turvy Bulgarian idiosyncrasy is easy to acclimatize to, but it’s often downright unnerving. The problem is compounded by the fact that the Sofiantsi are not exactly a smiley bunch. Ask a waiter for a glass of water, or a taxi driver to go to the city center and you’ll often get a blank-faced, silent head shake. On the first couple of occasions, it will feel like they are telling you to get lost, but they are actually agreeing.

The head-shaking anomaly will be doubly unsettling in your formal meetings. Just as you deliver your favorite PowerPoint slide, you’ll notice the stern, bull-necked Bulgarian apparatchiks shaking their heads at you. It’s menacing for the uninitiated, and it might be best to practice in Brussels beforehand to ask your friends and family to shake their heads at everything you say, though they may already do this.

2) You've landed! Welcome! Now watch out for pirate taxis.

Don’t be scared of the burly band of cab drivers, as you trudge through the icy slush outside the airport terminal. Some of them can look like bruising night-club bouncers but they’re generally bashful hypochondriacs who call their mamas at least twice a day. I’ve had one charming cab driver who worked for years in the African oil industry, another who explained the intricacies of a 2014 bank run and yet another who was an expert on — of all things — drains.

The other classic trick is that the driver will pretend not to have change.

Alas, there are also some sharks. The best way to avoid scams is to look for the "OKSupertrans" logo on yellow cabs and their price vignette in the window. Here is a useful web page on how to ensure that you are getting into a bona fide taxi. The price list is key; study it carefully.

The other classic trick is that the driver will pretend not to have change. So it makes sense to break a note by buying a snack in the airport terminal first.

3) Hungry? You've come to the right place.

We’ll let you into a secret: the Bulgarians have the best cuisine in Europe. If you are challenged on this obvious point of fact by the French, simply point out that when they eat their beloved escargots à l’ail in Paris, they are probably actually munching superior Slavic snails imported from Bulgaria. Gallic gastropods don’t cut it.

Mollusks aside, Bulgarians excel at grills and slow-cooked stews (gyuvech and kavarma), washed down with rakiya, a strong liquor made from grapes or plums. The most famous haunt for traditional, rustic fare is the Manastirskata Magernitsa. The rococo menu includes “Rabbit with an expired hunting license,” “Partridges that gathered herbs,” “Manly courgettes against divorce” and — most cryptically — “A forgotten boat.”

The Armenian eatery Egur Egur appears to have moved from the stately old town house I visited a few years ago for an excellent duck and prunes. As long as the menu has stayed the same, it comes highly recommended. If your tastes veer more in the Mitteleuropa direction, the no-frills Czech Club offers hearty dumplings and a crisp glass of Staropramen.

The Architect’s Club is a popular, upscale choice, and will come into its own later in the presidency, when the garden opens up. It serves Western European cuisine, if you have hit your saturation point with meatballs and shashlik skewers.

4) But I'm a lentil-cruncher from the directorate general for the environment. Won't I starve in Sofia?

Far from it. Bulgarian cuisine is rich in vegetarian options, from bean soups to stuffed peppers. The city is now also in the grip of a bio-food craze. This is perhaps unsurprising in a nation of gardeners, who were even the pioneers of growing vegetables in space. The Sunmoon bakery epitomizes the healthy eating zeitgeist. One of the celebrity trailblazers of the eco-food trend is the former world No. 4 tennis star Magdalena Maleeva, who has not only set up the environmental forum gorichka.bg but also the harmonica food brand, and the associated BIOMAG organic shops.

You’ll also need to try boza, a sour, lightly fermented drink made from various grains. It’s an acquired taste, we grant you.

5) Get into the local kultura.

Free city tours are wildly popular and are an excellent way to get to know the heart of the city and its history. You just have to show up here. One of the best things about these city walks is that your guides are bright, bubbly young Bulgarians, who are passionate about their country. They should be a heartening antidote to some of the dinosaurs you are going to meet in the corridors of power.

While a city-center tour will be fun, two of the jewels in Sofia’s crown lie on the outskirts, toward Mount Vitosha: the National History Museum and Boyana Church.

The highlight of the museum is the Thracian treasure. The Thracians are the Bulgarians’ most intriguing (if enigmatic) ancestors, and their superstars included the bard Orpheus and the rebel gladiator Spartacus. We know frustratingly little about the ancient Thracian tribes, but their intricate gold and silverwork offers a tantalizing insight into a highly sophisticated, vanished society.

The museum is an artefact in itself, as it was a Communist Party residence under the last dictator, the crass but guileful Todor Zhivkov. Inside, there’s a peculiar sense that the clock has stopped and the bright, airy rooms are often eerily deserted. In an echo of the socialist heyday, visitors can feel distinctly outnumbered by the gossiping middle-aged women with copper-dyed hair employed as … well, it’s not exactly clear what they’re employed as, but the museum seems to exist as much for them as the visitors.

Many guidebooks have a mystifying fixation with church visits. The iconic image of Sofia is Alexander Nevsky cathedral, a vast, overlayered wedding cake of a building that you should feel under no obligation to visit. Boyana, however, is not to be missed. A UNESCO world heritage site, the discreet, red-brick chapel is famous for the delicacy and perspective of its frescos. To win favor in Bulgaria, you should repeatedly point out that this work predates Giotto. Bulgarians will shake their heads vigorously at this observation. One or two may even smile. A little.

If traveling with kids, Muzeiko is an entertaining interactive science museum where you can fly through space — learn more about those space vegetables — and build earthquake-resistant tower blocks.

6) Enough about food and frescos, what about Bulgarian officials?

Bulgarians are smart. They like chess and mathematical Olympiads, and go off to work in Silicon Valley. Your problem is that the old guard left in politics and the ministries can be starchily formal, condescending, obstructive and not-a-little corrupt. Little can be achieved with many of these people — some will be working for the mob or the Kremlin, or both. To while away the time in redundant meetings, I can only recommend you engage in a pastime akin to birdwatching to determine which genus of apparatchik your interlocutor falls into.

Here is your first lesson in useful Bulgarian:

Dârven filosof: Wooden philosopher. An interminable bore, who drones on and on from a position of perceived superiority. Common.

Tutmanik: Literally, a cheesy loaf. Quite simply a moron. Also called a glupak. Far from endangered.

Bai Ganyo: A name derived from a 19th-century novel by Aleko Konstantinov about the worst kind of Bulgarian everyman, who wants something for nothing. A shameless opportunist who will seek a generous sweetener for himself in any proposal. Tragically common.

Mutra. A thick-necked mafioso. His poor taste is only surpassed by the female of the species: the mutresa.

Nekadârnik. A good-for-nothing. Nearly universal. The pigeon of the bureaucratic world.

If you get really hacked off, use these words liberally.

7) A little night music

After your soul-destroying encounter with Bulgarian officialdom, you will need some music to lift your spirits. You are in the right town.

Sofia must be the cheapest place to enjoy high-brow culture in Europe, with ballet and opera tickets starting from as little as €5 and €10. Take a look at what’s on: some classics like Turandot, La Traviata and Rigoletto are coming up early in the year.

If this isn’t your scene, the Bulgarians do a thoroughly entertaining line in jazz-cum-folk. These cool cats in the Oratnitza group have even found a place for the didgeridoo in Bulgarian folk tradition. (Have a look at their piece "Vitosha" here. The guys in goatskins and cow-bells are called kukeri – and they’re a whole other story.) Also keep a look out for any event with Ivo Papazov, the legendary clarinet virtuoso and Theodosii Spassov, the kaval maestro. You are not going to hear anything quite like this anywhere else in the world, so seize the opportunity in Bulgaria.

The events' guide in English here looks pretty thorough.

8) Heading back to Brussels.

Are you really sure you want to?