Bulgaria - Plovdiv and Kazanluk

It's amazing what crossing a border does - we have our blog back again! Yay!

Ahhh, Plovdiv! What a beautiful place! Being the oldest continually inhabited city in Europe (it's been inhabited for 6,000 years!) we were looking forward to investigating the layers of history here. Neolithics, Thracians, Romans, Byzantines, Bulgarians (yes, they're a separate ethnic group) and the Ottomans all came through here at various times.

We stayed in a lovely hotel in the middle of town. It was a cut above the sorts of places we usually stay and it was fantastic!

It started well when we checked in and they told us that there were ruins under the hotel and they would show us around them.

The owners bought an old, run-down building on this site. They demolished it, then went to build the foundations. They dug down and found ancient ruins. All work stopped immediately. The relevant authorities were called in and they soon found a Roman bathhouse under the house! This delayed the building of the hotel but it also changed the owners' plans. They decided to make a feature of the Roman ruins and build a hotel on top that would fit with the ruins underneath. They did it well.

A whole Roman bath was revealed, along with the heating system, pipes, marble paving etc. Of course, they could only dig in their own land area and the baths disappear into the earth beneath neighbouring buildings.

Looking at the entrance to one of the baths. Some of the marble is original.

An artist's interpretation of what this part of the baths looked like.

On our first night, we went to a place where we could taste some Bulgarian wines. The person who usually showed the wines wasn't there but our fantastic waiter was happy to pour us many drinks and charged us only a euro or two each time. He also took us down to the cellar which was really interesting. They had wines from all over Bulgaria as well as the world.

They also had all sorts of odd things like a wine that was kept in the Black Sea for two years as part of its aging process. The bottles were covered in small barnacles! I'm not sure it did anything for the wine though.

Each day, John and I walked, exploring sights as we went. I also went on a free walking tour one afternoon and learned a lot.

The old city used to be walled, and still is partly. Only one of the old gates survives.

What they think the gate looked like originally.

In some places, we could see the layers of different building styles of the old walls. On the bottom were the large blocks of the Thracians. On top were Byzantine and other styles.

A lot of the walls were knocked down by the Ottomans as they were worried that locals could barricade themselves behind the walls and defend themselves against them.

Most of the beautiful old buildings are obviously Ottoman-influenced. The Ottomans ruled here for centuries. They were colourful and many had rooms that extended beyond the buildings' footprints, creating extra space over the narrow, cobblestoned streets.

There were gorgeous gates too.

This building was stunning. Before people started preserving the old houses, this one was slated to be demolished to make way for a warehouse. A local councillor bought it himself to save it, and things steamrolled from there. Today, many of the most important old houses are owned by the council and are operated as museums. Sadly, we didn't get to see inside this one as it was never open at times that worked for us.

Away from the main part of the old city, there were still many grand buildings.

The original fortified town was built on three hills but then spread across seven hills. The manhole covers proudly reflect the history of the seven hills.

Even the rubbish bins were vintage!

The layers of history here were amazing. On top of the highest hill lay the ruins of a number of the ancient settlements. Walls from different periods were dotted around the area.

There were substantial Roman ruins, most unearthed by accident. The Ancient Theatre of Philippopolis was stunning. They boast that it's one of the best-preserved ancient theatres in the world. It was found accidentally when a man who owned a house dug too deep under his house and found a Roman column. The authorities soon tore down his and his neighbour's houses (I hope they were well compensated!) and found all this underneath. It was constructed in the 1st century AD and could hold 6,000 spectators. Not only was it used as a theatre, but also for gladiator and sporting contests. They still hold live performances here but I didn't know about them in time. I would love to have seen a show here!

The facade of the theatre now backs onto the sprawling city.

My favourite though was the Ancient Stadium of Philippopolis. Again, it was found when someone dug foundations for another building. The stadium is huge - 240 metres long and 50m wide. It was designed for chariot racing but also Roman athletic sports that were a takeoff of the Greek Olympics. Coincidentally, the entire stadium runs under a stretch of pedestrianised road. They can't knock houses and shops down to reveal all the stadium because those shops and houses are also heritage listed! So all we can see publicly is the curved end and some rows of seating.

A tunnel led into the stadium and the emperor of the time sat on his own special seat here.

A nearby model showed how huge the stadium is.

Even stranger, the only other place where some of the stadium has been revealed is under the H&M clothing shop! You enter the shop, buy your clothes on levels 1 to 4, or go downstairs to see the ruins!

You can even see the clothing from the ruins underneath.

At a certain point on the floor of the pedestrian mall, two markers are laid into the bricks. These  signify the end of the stadium under the ground. It's sooooo long!

Just metres away from the rounded end of the stadium was a mosque that was 100 years older than any mosque in Istanbul. This is known as the Ottomans hadn't taken over Constantinople at that stage and the city wasn't Muslim.

Just nearby again was a cosmopolitan, trendy section of town. There were many restaurants and bars there.

This statue on the main pedestrian street has a story behind it. The man was called Milo. He was an eccentric that roamed the streets, singing to people. He died in the '80s but the townspeople wanted to remember him so this statue was made. You're supposed to whisper a secret wish in his ear. He was also known as a bit of a Casanova so if you rub his leg, you're supposed to have a great sex life! Also, his hand is resting in his pocket, over his private parts, apparently a dig at him not able to keep his penis in his pants!

We had fun learning how to read the language. Who can guess what this sign says? Hint: it's one of the world's most well-known brands ......

One of our walks led us to a nearby hill a bit out of the main part of town. We passed part of the ancient aqueduct that brought water all the way from the Rhodope Mountains.

At the top stood an enormous statue of a Russian soldier. Russia had a big influence here for a while (they helped Bulgaria repel the Ottomans), however since the Russia/Ukraine war, there has been a lot of discussion about tearing statues like this one down. It hasn't happened yet, but it could.

We went to this old clock tower to climb it but it was closed :(

There were many churches. During the Ottoman period, Christians could practice so long as the church wasn't visible from the outside. So high walls and low churches were built. They couldn't decorate the outsides so they went berserk inside.

One of my favourite places was the Bishop's Basilica. Lost for a very long time, it was discovered during roadworks in 1982. Not only did the old church have a huge, amazing mosaic floor but the floor was built over an even older mosaic floor! Under that were even older temples. 

The more recent mosaic were unlike any I've seen. They were made in the "rainbow style" where colour was everywhere. They were awesome! John doesn't share my mosaic passion and left early, haha.

There were many plants and birds featured, all very distinguishable.

The newer rainbow style artwork even featured unusual geometric shapes.

The newer floor on top of the old floor.

Several hundred years after the first mosaic floor was created, something, presumably an earthquake, caused the floor to buckle and many of the mosaics cracked. New stable base layers were laid over the old floor and the new floor was laid on that.

The buckled first floor.

One night, we went to see The Odyssey at a theatre. It was in English. They had huge old projectors in the foyer. We both came out of the movie not really sure how we felt about it. Didn't hate it, didn't love it.

I really wish we had another day or two in Plovdiv. There was so much to see! Sadly, we spent a lot of our time in our room as we were trying to finalise the next part of our trip to the 'stans. We'll just have to come back one day!

As we drove towards our next destination, Kazanluk, we passed a big processing plant with the word 'oil' plus other words that we couldn't read on it. Crops spread around the building, and it took me a while to realise what the crop was. It was roses! Kazanluk is the main town in the so-called Valley of the Roses, so this rose oil production place got us thinking that we were in for a rosy treat at the main town we were heading to. We were wrong. As we drove into Kazanluk a few roses lined the main entrance in and that was it. 

Things didn't improve. After negotiating narrow one-way streets to our apartment, when google maps didn't know they were one-way, we squeezed into the last car park for a series of apartment blocks. We had rented an apartment here and we wandered around for a while trying to work out which grungy apartment block was ours. We finally found our drab, ugly apartment block where rubbish collected in an unused stairwell and we had to step over old pipes to get to the door. Fortunately, the apartment was perfectly fine inside.

This photo makes the place look good!

The reason we were based here is, you guessed it, there were mountains nearby. The Balkan Mountains run parallel to the Rhodope Mountains. In between lay the Thracian Valley, also known more recently as The Valley of the Roses.

We only had two full days here and our walks turned out to be tours of what we nicknamed the Monumental Megaliths. Dotted on the tops of the mountains were huge soviet-era statues, most in a similar boxy, brutalist style.

Our first walk took us to a huge tower, the Shipka Monument, dedicated to soldiers who died while successfully defending the nearby passes against the Ottomans. We climbed 890 steps to reach it!

On the way there were oversized soviet-style sculptures. All these monuments seem to be so big! These were about 50% bigger than a person.

Old canons pointed to what used to be invading Ottomans but now they just point to the stunning views, fortunately.

We walked along a track for a while then looped back on what looked like a very old road. Parts of it were paved with cobblestones and old mileposts appeared occasionally. That part was lovely.

On the drive back, we passed another soviet-era monument, The Torches, and a simply enormous one, Buzludzha Monument, stood on a higher hill behind it.

The next day, we coincidentally started our walk at The Torches. We slogged straight up the side of the hill to the weirdly futuristic-but-in-ruins monument at the top, Buzludzha Monument.

It was bizarre. Built in 1981, it served as the ideological headquarters of the Bulgarian Communist Party before falling into ruin. The round part looked just like a UFO, complete with a series of windows around the edges. The whole structure was crumbling back into the earth from whence it came. The windows were broken and graffiti decorated the base. We later heard that there were mosaics inside but the UFO part was surprisingly high off the ground and we couldn’t see in.

 

Even the old writing was falling off.

The views from the top were wonderful of course. That’s why it was built here. It was supposed to be a proud and loud celebration of communism.

Beside the UFO stood a ridiculously high tower.

A UFO among the flowers, haha.

I sometimes wonder what it will be like in the future when archaeologists uncover things like this. What on earth will they think it is?

We walked down through a lovely forest. We found this tree that looked like it belonged in Lord of the Rings or something.

It’s getting towards the tail end of summer…..

We saw the golden domes of a church as we drove in earlier through the town of Shipka, so we came back to check it out. The Shipka Memorial Church is a Bulgarian Orthodox church built between 1885 and 1902. It was dedicated to the Russian and Bulgarian soldiers who died for the liberation of Bulgaria in the Russo-Turkish War in 1877-78. The church's bells were cast from the cartridges that were collected after the battles and all those who died are recognised inside.

Nearby, a kids’ novelty ride looked like it was plugged into a tree. They take green energy to extremes here!

We were still spending every spare minute working on our next legs of the trip so we didn’t have a lot of extra time to explore, but we couldn’t leave the so-called Valley of the Thracian Kings without checking out some of the famous tombs. Built by the ancient Thracians between the 5th and 3rd centuries BC there are an estimated 1,500 tombs in the valley. So far, only about 300 have been excavated and about 35 of these are considered to be significant.

We can see why the Thracians were a successful race. Even today, this valley is very fertile. We drove past hundreds of kilometres of crops, predominantly sunflowers.

The tombs were built for rulers and wealthy people. At each one we visited, a corridor was dug into the side of a hill. At the end of the corridor was a stone door. Inside was a chamber where a horse, multiple horses and/or dogs were sacrificed and buried with the wealthy person, presumably to accompany them in the afterlife. Another stone door led to a chamber where the body was laid and grave offerings were given. All the tombs we saw had been robbed over the years, but some others had been found with treasures still inside.

The stone work was amazing for the time.

The stone doors on some tombs were still largely intact.

In the town of Kazanluk was found one of the most intricately decorated tombs. The delicacy of it means that it is sealed off and a replica has been constructed nearby. It had some very cool artwork in it.

The entrance to the burial chamber was painted red and black, the colours of death.

The burial chamber was a dome made of stones. The art work was amazing!

Kazanluk wasn’t the most pleasant place to stay but it probably gave us the best idea of what the life of a normal Bulgarian is like. It seemed that most people lived in apartments like ours. I hope theirs were a lot better on the inside than the outside ‘cos we saw some pretty ugly apartment blocks.

Some buildings in the town had been built in rough brick, clearly with the intention of rendering over them, but the rendering had never been done. The brickwork was sometimes terrible! We saw one wall that curved significantly inwards along its length and a few whose ’rows’ of bricks were more like ‘wiggles’ of bricks.

This was a pretty rough job…..

But the real concern was that it was relied on to hold up what was built on top of it!

You’ve got to love a town that still has signs like this up though.

One night we ate at a local restaurant and had sach, a traditional dish of meat and vegetables that is cooked on a sizzling plate. It was delicious! But even better was the huge bread, fresh out of the oven.

Kazanluk would be our last stay in Bulgaria. We really enjoyed most of our time there. It was a beautiful country with a lot to see. My favourite place by far was the Rhodope Mountains with its gorgeous greenery, rugged gorges and hills dotted with pretty villages. I’m sure we’ll be back again one day!

We returned the car to the airport, where the hardest part of the drive was finding our way into the car park, and caught a flight to Istanbul. We couldn’t connect to our next flight on the same day, so we had to overnight in Istanbul. John found a hotel on the Black Sea, a sea we’ve never been to. It wasn’t hard to get there by pre-arranged transport, so we went. It turned out to be a waste of time really.

We walked along the Black Sea in the evening but there were strong winds and the waves crashed violently against the short groynes and a headland. We had planned to at least dip our toes in, but we didn’t even step on the sand. It looks pretty tame here, but it wasn’t.

It was strange to see such a strong Muslim culture after not being in a Muslim country for a while. It was a Sunday and many people were picnicking in the howling wind. Nearly all the women wore the full black garb.

John wanted raki-balik for dinner, fish and raki. It's a famous Turkish combination. We went to a fish restaurant but it was a dry place. Catering to the Muslims, they didn’t serve alcohol there. They sent us to a tourist hotel. Sure enough, they had raki. We asked to see the menu, but they offered us a QR code. We didn’t have a Turkish sim card, and we’re old enough to hate using QR codes to get menus, so the nice young man behind the counter opened the menu on his phone and said we could take it to the table to look at it there. 

John was reading the menu when he bumped something on the phone and all the guy's internet tabs came up. The screen was full of porn! Judging by the amount on there, I don’t think that this guy looked at anything else on his phone. And he seemed like such a sweet young man. We quickly found our way back to the menu, chose something then handed the phone back when he went past, trying to keep the we-know-what-you-watch looks off our faces.

Our hotel was fine but it had a lot of problems. I couldn’t sleep with the crap pillows and the noise from upstairs added to my lack of sleep. There was way too much light in the room and a smoke alarm flashed every couple of seconds. The flashes reflected in a mirror so the effect was like trying to sleep in a disco. Yes, we have earplugs and eye-masks but it still wasn’t great.

As I write this, we are on the plane to Kazakhstan! This next section of our trip will be the most challenging for us by far. Neither of us have been anywhere near the ‘stans, so it will all be a very new experience. We really don’t know what to expect.

Wish us luck!

Heather and John