Plovdiv is Bulgaria’s second largest city (population ~ 500,000) after the capital city of Sofia. We often enjoy seeing the second cities of Europe because they are many times less touristy but still have enough attractions that give us a sense of the “identity” of a country. Plovdiv had a walkable downtown surrounded by 7 hills that made it feel like a much smaller town. There were areas of 19th century restored houses in the old town, early 20th century Western European buildings on the main street, with communist era apartment buildings around the edge of the downtown. We stayed in an Airbnb on the 8th floor of one of those plain looking Soviet style apartment buildings. The apartment itself had been renovated recently so it didn’t feel as drab as the building did from the outside. Our favorite area of town was the neighborhood of Kapana. We had lot of meals sitting in the street patios of several fantastic restaurants that kind of blended into each other. It was a bit difficult to see where one restaurant started and the other ended. I wish more cities in America would allow this.
The city was also filled with a lot more older history than we were expecting. We just spent 3 weeks in Romania where the language is traced to the Romans but we didn’t see many Roman ruins. Plovdiv was filled with Roman ruins. There is a 30,000 seat stadium that is under the main pedestrian street in town. It has been excavated in a couple of places so you can see how impressive it must have been. There was even a place to see the old stadium seats in the basement of the H&M clothing store. There was also an old Roman theater that has been renovated for modern music and theater events. Unfortunately the only event during our stay was a MMA “Gladiator” fight that we were not interested in. There was also a Roman forum and some fantastic old mosaics that have been recently uncovered by archeologists. The Basilicas with the mosaics are impressive enough to be potentially being named a UNESCO heritage site in the next couple of years.
Besides looking at ruins and architecture we did a few other touristy activities this week. We joined the “free walking tour” the first day like we have done in so many other towns. We visited the archeology museum, the art museum, ethnographic museum, Orthodox Church, Mosque, and hiked to the top of many of the small hills surrounding downtown. I am trying to do some longer bike rides this summer so I need to start getting back into biking shape. I rented a bike one day and found myself at a rowing competition on a long man made lake. I like running into unexpected things like that.
We have seen several Balkan countries and each one has it’s own identity. We are still trying to understand Bulgaria and what makes this place different from the other ones we have visited. The communist period seems to have affected each country differently We have one more week in this country to help us learn a bit more about Bulgaria. Next week is in the capital city- Sofia!