Made it to Plovdiv, the cultural center of Bulgaria! Of course there is some rivalry between Plovdiv and Sofia and they both claim to...

Plovdiv

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Made it to Plovdiv, the cultural center of Bulgaria!
Of course there is some rivalry between Plovdiv and Sofia and they both claim to be the best but in my opinion Plovdiv gets the crown!


I got to Plovdiv and joined the 6pm free walking tour to learn a little bit about the beautiful town. So, Plovdiv is the city of seven hills but only six are still standing! The seventh hill is flat on plovdiv’s streets, the municipality destroyed it and made the streets out of its rocks.

The tour took us through the main pedestrian stroll…





And ended up by the friday mosque, one of the oldest mosques in the balkans!



Our guide explaining how they build the pedestrian street on top of ruins!

And then to the area called Kapana (the trap), once a neighborhood with many tangled streets filled with craftsmen, now a trendy and artsy neighborhood. While on the tour the guide said that the coming weekend was the beginning of their famous Kapana festival, which was a must. I asked a couple of locals if the festival was worth prolonging my stay and they all said yes! So, i did!

All we need is pLOVEdiv! 

Art on the streets!





haha, love this Electrical box.. He even got shoes!!!

Art, art, and more art! Love it!

After Kapana we walked through the old part of town which is now a UNESCO world heritage site and is nicely preserved. We visited the ancient theater of Philippopol, one of the best preserved ancient theatres in the world. The guide told us that a couple of years ago a home owner actually discovered one of the pillars and then they kicked him and all the neighbors to do some excavations and gave them some crappy housing instead but now... they have a beautiful amphitheater!!!




A  traditional house, now a museum!

 I call the next picture the sexist corner! So the little room on the left was made for the wife of the rich guy who owned the house so she could have something to do! and that was... sit by the window, look at people on the street and gossip! You know why? because she had so many servants doing everything for her that she needed a distraction! 

The houses in the old town had the top floor coming out and we didn't really know why until the guide explained that when somebody built a house they only had to pay taxes on the square meter of the foundation of the house so by building the top bigger they were getting away with having a bigger house without having to pay taxes for it!



The tour ended after two hours at the top of one of the hills with a great view of the town and an amazing sunset!



Two of the hills! 





For the rest of my time in Plovdiv I relaxed, slept in, ate ice cream everyday, and walked more of the streets.





Of course I visited more Orthodox churches!!! 
Art students were around the less walked streets of old town painting!


I am guessing they do not have a proper permit for copying Friend's Central Perk!


So cute! haha (well, the watermelon's face a little creepy!)

I loved walking through the park and seeing some many kids playing but what I didn't like was that in this super green and beautiful park all you could smell was cigarette!!!!! arghh!!!!


On one afternoon my new friend Yu Ting and I hiked one of the hills to check out the view and the sunset... all we got was dark clouds, lightning, and thunder!!!



The Kapana festival was such a waste of time though! Maybe Plovdivians don't know what a nice festival is like but definitely a lot of shops on the streets of Kapana and booze all over the street does NOT translate to a festival in my book! I went to check it out and see some of the people playing music but walking there for 15 mins blackened my lungs more than anything!
On the bright side, by extending my stay in Plovdiv I was able to:
1. Move to a new hostel and spend some nights listening to a volunteer play guitar and sing beuatiful songs in portuguese (play video below)

2. Go to beautiful Kazanlak and the Rose festival.... <3 (see the next blog!)


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About Post Author

Hi! It's me... Andrea! In 2016 I decided to drop everything and take a year to enrich my life and travel around the world. It turns out the world is just too big for 12 months! Still on the road and sharing my experience as a solo female traveler around the globe!

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About me




Hi! It's me... Andrea!

In this blog you can live vicariously through my journey around the world!

Please feel free to share tips or places to go!
Contact me: andreaheartstraveling@gmail.com