Plovdiv, Bulgaria

Last Monday, we woke up to a grey Sofia, luckily we had plans to hit the road again...to Plovdiv. As you could probably tell from the cobblestone road arriving in the old town. Plovdiv is one of Europe's oldest cities, it was originally a Thracian settlement before becoming a major city ruled by Greeks and Romans in Antiquity, as you can tell from the Roman ampitheatre discovered only in the 1960's. It was so well preserved partly because this was more or less a compost/junk pile for hundreds of years and this was forgotten.

They also discovered a Roman stadium dating from the 2nd century when building the promenade for the current town center, it now stands beneath a mosque. It cool that this monument is just chillin at the center of the town square with vendors doing their thing all around it.

The old town was really cool, large and fun to explore. Plovdiv is among the few cities with two ancient theatres; remains of the medieval walls and towers; Ottoman baths and mosques; a well-preserved old quarter from the National Revival period with beautiful houses, churches and narrow paved streets.

We dropped our bags off at the hotel in the middle of old town, and used the scare sunshine to wander around in the afternoon, before going to a local bar for a bottle of Kamenitza, brewed in Plovdiv. They also have a pretty sweet promenade with tons of modern shops. The town is really has the potential of being the next great European destination. The old town, though amazing, is being reconstructed and preserved at a pretty slow pace and I bet in 5-10 years you'll hear the name everywhere. This is from the top of the old town looking over roman ruins.

After walking around the lower town some more, we got ready and went to dinner at Hebros, voted the best restaurant in Bulgaria a few years ago. It was a slow Monday, but an amazing meal that is probably 1/3 - 1/2 the price of a similar restaurant in Western Europe. Definitely a must if visiting. We had a 3 hour dinner and took some night photos of the old town before we went back to the hotel.

The next morning we wandered where we hadn't in the old town, had a coffee and lunch at a really cool Armenian restaurant where the owner helped us himself and gave a great experience. 3 courses and beer for €10....that is not a typo. It was amazing!

We caught the 4pm bus back to Sofia, had a quick dinner, and then it was off to the airport. Duty free had Zubrovka polish vodka for dirt cheap which made a happy ending for another terrific weekend! We are off to Westport, County Mayo, for the weekend!