Thence men go to Belgrade, and thence to Buigris (Bulgers), where they find a bridge of stone over the river which is called Straet Ombarrocc (the Morava), and thence through the land that is called Pinnseras (Pincenati), and thence to the city of Sternes (Hesternit, Sofia) in Greece, and thence
And therein dwelleth commonly the Grecian Emperor, and in it stands the church that is fairest in the world, (dedicated) to Saint Sophia. And before the Church is the image of the Emperor Justinian seated on a horse of red marble, and gilded. And there was an apple in his hand, and a crown round his head, and he let the apple fall out of his hand, and the philosophers and sages of Greece understood thereby, that the lordship which the Grecian Emperor possessed, such as Romans and the Greeks and Asia Minor and Syria, and the land of Judaea wherein is Jerusalem, and the land of the Persians, and Arabia, and Egypt, was all gone from him, save only Greece. And oftentimes men tried to put that apple into the hand of that image again, and it could not be done. And the other hand of that image is held on high, and its face is westward in token of challenging the evildoers.