The Free City Tours have been excellent. Today Ilya led around the city on a two-hour tour. He did an great job of sprinkling in interesting historical facts at each stop along the way.
The tour began in front of one of the many city parks which you can see in the background in the photo above. We learned that Plovdiv is considered to be one of the longest continually inhabited cities in the world. It’s between 6000-8000 years old!
The historical timeline is complicated. It was settled by the Thracians because the surrounding hills made it easy to defend, the river provided fertile soil for growing crops (like the Nile River in Egypt), and the climate is moderate. It was captured by Philip II of Macedonia, taken over by the Romans, and destroyed by the Huns. And that’s just the early history…
We made a stop in the Old Town where we saw a couple of guys enjoying coffee and conversation.
There is a bit of graffiti around town,
but for the most part, Plovdiv is very clean and tidy. Today in the parks, workers are removing the spring pansies and planting summer flowers. We are impressed by all of the beautiful green spaces with monuments, flowers, and many trees.
The main streets are lined with shops selling clothing, souvenirs, jewelry and more. The photo below is of the inside of the Orange Bookshop – a Bulgarian chain.
We expected the food in Bulgaria to be heavy with meats and potatoes but we have had some beautifully prepared and delicious meals at half the cost of a comparable meal at home. We’ve had duck, pastas, lamb, seafood and very creative salads. The salad below is from Hemingways in Plovdiv – it has fresh greens, tomatoes, strawberries and glazed-with-honey goat cheese.
The desserts are delicious too! We had a funny misunderstanding when a waiter described a special Rosemary Cheesecake. We thought that sounded really unique and ordered a slice. When it arrived it was dark pink in color and we realized that the waiter confused the word rosemary with the word raspberry. It was a slice of raspberry cheesecake with a chocolate crust. Still tasty but a surprise.
As we expected, Bulgaria is full of surprises!