Popping Over to Plovdiv

I managed to fit in two lovely day trips during my short stay in Bulgaria (or rather, two day trips were fitted in for me).

The first was to a city in the centre of the country called Plovdiv - described as one of the most beautiful cities in Bulgaria. Well, to be perfectly blunt, with Sofia as my reference point, it wasn't going to be hard to beat. Turns out, Plovdiv really is a rather beautiful city with its own special character, and an amazing old city that has a well preserved Roman and Turkish influenced architectural side to it. Enough for a day trip, perhaps even an overnight trip - but definitely a city you can spend a few hours wandering around aimlessly in...

 

 

Plovdiv is known to many Bulgarians as the city of seven hills - like Rome. Turns out, there aren't quite seven hills any more, and some of the ones that are there are more like molehills. However, the are clearly 3 'humps' that make up the old city. The streets are old cobblestones - the type that would wear out the suspension on any car, but they really give the city the feel of days gone by. Walking through the old city one feels like one is stepping back in time, to a good time, prior to Communism. There are absolutely beautiful 19th century houses, many of which have been turned into museums of one kind or another. It really turns the city into a single 'large' museum where you walk around and check out the houses that sound interesting - some are simply restorations and recreations, some have specific museums inside (art, etc.). Amongst all of this are the Roman ruins...
 

The Roman amphitheatre is said to be one of the highlights of Plovdiv. It definitely was for me. It would be a fantastic place for an open air play or concert, and is apparently still used today for such events. It sits atop one of the 3 hills, with the audience looking out over a new part of the city. I have always been impressed by the type of constructions the Romans made. What I noted here in particular was how much it reminded me of Caeserea (in Israel). The fact that throughout the Empire, the Romans were able to replicate such structures, and make them all so similar, with two thousand year old technology, is quite amazing in my opinion.

I don't think the restaurant manager saw the irony in this...

Another one of the 3 hills of the old city contains ruins of an ancient Thracian settlement. Turns out my trip to Bulgaria was also very educational - prior to the trip I hadn't even heard of these people before, but on hearing the name I figured there is something special about their chests (thoracic) or that they are related to some pre-historic era (Jurassic). In actual fact, this was simply a group of people that inhabited various parts of South Eastern Europe a couple of millennia ago. They seemed to have disappeared in the first few centuries CE, but left behind a few traces of their existence. Not only the ruins in Plovdiv, but some ruins in other parts of the country as well as some amazing gold treasures which have been discovered, buried in various sites around Bulgara over the last couple of decades. The ruins themselves aren't particularly impressive, but walking in history, is.

One of the things I quite enjoyed about the day was the train ride. There is quite a bit of natural beauty in this country. Within a short period of leaving Sofia, the train meanders through the forested mountains into the country's interior. The forests look practically untouched. Beyond the mountains are fields of sunflowers and crops as far as the eye can see. All this natural beauty is, unfortunately (yet interestingly for me) broken only by simple, old, and crumbling train stations that all look the same, empty factory buildings that should have been torn down years ago, and the odd town or village that appears to still be living in last century. People get on and off the train and talk to each other. Yes/no questions to a stranger turn into 5 minute conversations (or longer). People smile at you. They try and help you (in Bulgarian of course) when you can't figure out how to open a door. The feeling is definitely a warm one. All you seem to need there to get on the right side of people is a friendly "dobŭr den", or "good day". It was a nice feeling to get friendly responses from strangers when I only spoke 5 words of their language (in great comparison to hardly being able to get a "hej" out of my neighbours back in Copenhagen....)

Finally, learning to smile in photos...