{"id":4271,"date":"2023-05-02T10:43:52","date_gmt":"2023-05-02T14:43:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/travel.woodring.us\/wordpress\/?p=4271"},"modified":"2023-05-02T10:43:52","modified_gmt":"2023-05-02T14:43:52","slug":"plovdiv-city-tour","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/travel.woodring.us\/wordpress\/2023\/05\/02\/plovdiv-city-tour\/","title":{"rendered":"Plovdiv City Tour"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Free City Tours have been excellent. \u00a0Today Ilya led around the city on a two-hour tour. \u00a0He did an great job of sprinkling in interesting historical facts at each stop along the way.<\/p>\n

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Plovdiv City Tour Guide<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The tour began in front of one of the many city parks which you can see in the background in the photo above. \u00a0We learned that Plovdiv is considered to be one of the longest continually inhabited cities in the world. \u00a0It\u2019s between 6000-8000 years old!<\/p>\n

The historical timeline is complicated. \u00a0It 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. \u00a0It was captured by Philip II of Macedonia, taken over by the Romans, and destroyed by the Huns. \u00a0And that\u2019s just the early history\u2026<\/p>\n

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Roman Ruins<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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City Gate Built During the Time of Philip II<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

We made a stop in the Old Town where we saw a couple of guys enjoying \u00a0coffee and conversation.<\/p>\n

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Old Town Plovdiv<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

There is a bit of graffiti around town,<\/p>\n

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Plovdiv Street Art<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

but for the most part, Plovdiv is very clean and tidy. \u00a0Today in the parks, workers are removing the spring pansies and planting summer flowers. \u00a0We are impressed by all of the beautiful green spaces with monuments, flowers, and many trees.<\/p>\n

The main streets are lined with shops selling clothing, souvenirs, jewelry and more. \u00a0The photo below is of the inside of the Orange Bookshop – a Bulgarian chain.<\/p>\n

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Orange Bookshop-Plovdiv<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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. \u00a0We\u2019ve had duck, pastas, lamb, seafood and very creative salads. \u00a0The salad below is from Hemingways in Plovdiv – it has fresh greens, tomatoes, strawberries and glazed-with-honey goat cheese.<\/p>\n

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Salad with Goat Cheese<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The desserts are delicious too! \u00a0We had a funny misunderstanding when a waiter described a special Rosemary Cheesecake. \u00a0We thought that sounded really unique and ordered a slice. \u00a0When it arrived it was dark pink in color and we realized that the waiter confused the word rosemary with the word raspberry. \u00a0It was a slice of raspberry cheesecake with a chocolate crust. \u00a0Still tasty but a surprise.<\/p>\n

As we expected, Bulgaria is full of surprises!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Free City Tours have been excellent. \u00a0Today Ilya led around the city on a two-hour tour. \u00a0He 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 … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Plovdiv City Tour”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4271","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bulgaria-romania"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/travel.woodring.us\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4271","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/travel.woodring.us\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/travel.woodring.us\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/travel.woodring.us\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/travel.woodring.us\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4271"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/travel.woodring.us\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4271\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4281,"href":"https:\/\/travel.woodring.us\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4271\/revisions\/4281"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/travel.woodring.us\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4271"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/travel.woodring.us\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4271"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/travel.woodring.us\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4271"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}