Corinne CrawfordI took the 2 ½ hour bus trip to Plovdiv and then tried to figure out what bus to take that would get me closest to my apartment. I waited awhile and then after no bus came with the route I was looking for, I asked a taxi driver how much it would cost. They quoted me 25 Bulgarian leva while the bus was only 1. I decided to keep waiting and about 15 minutes later, the correct bus number pulled up and after about 15 minutes, I had a short walk of 5 minutes to the apartment. The apartment building looked sort of run down but after following the instructions for self check in and taking the elevator to the 8th floor, the apartment was clean, nice, spacious with a balcony looking out over part of the city. I had arrived in the late afternoon and after settling in, went out for a quick bite to eat and went to bed.
I did my typical grocery shopping and got my now go-to ingredients for my breakfast, lunch and dinner and tried to figure out what I was going to do while I was in Plovdiv. There were a few historical sites to see and the city is built among a few small hills so I was definitely going to hike up to the top of one at some point at sunset to get a nice view. Plovdiv has several different interesting sections of town, they have the “Old Town” and then a pedestrian promenade that goes the length of the city and then a little cobbled pedestrian quarter with tons of restaurants and cafes.
I visited the old Roman theater that was just “recently” discovered. And is still used as a theater to this day. It has so much of the original architecture including most of the stadium seating. There is also of course a handful of old churches, mostly Orthodox Christian. There is also the ruins of the Roman stadium right in the heart of the city. I visited the Old City, which really feels like you are wandering around in the 1600’s. I found the people of Plovdiv much friendlier than in Sofia and had good evening conversations with the owner of the pub I adopted as my local haunt. I also had better luck at the train station getting information and purchasing my ticket on the night train to Istanbul. I purchased a first class sleeper cabin which meant I would have the cabin to myself. After my snoring disaster in the hostel in Inverness, I didn’t want to subject anyone else to my night noises.
I made some good meals at my apartment but also took myself out to a nice dinner as I usually do at least once during my time in a city. However, I failed to make a reservation and the night I decided to go out was also the night that the local university was celebrating graduation. Everything was packed, but I did manage to get a table that was all by itself, like around the corner on the sidewalk near the server’s station. It felt like I was eating at the break table. But I had a nice glass of local wine and a great chicken dish and enjoyed watching all of the people go by.
