Plovdiv

Plovdiv is one of the oldest, continually occupied cities in the world that you can still visit today.  (see http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/11/15/10-ancient-world-cities-y_n_783630.html#s181422)  The original ruins found there date back at least 6,000 years.  Anne and Mark decided it was at least worth a visit.

It is a little bit humbling to realize that when Philip of Macedonia named this town after himself (Philip was the father of Alexander the Great and as one of many names of this city prior to "Plovdiv," this town was called Philippopolis), this was already an ancient town for the Thracians.  After Philip came the rest of the Greeks, the Romans, some Huns, Slavs, Turks, Bulgarians, Nazis, Communists and, most recently, Anne and Mark.

Hi, everybody.  I'm Philip.

Since we were in a city named after a ruler so vain he named cities after himself wherever he went (see earlier visit to "Philipi" in Greece), we were not surprised to also s a statue of Philip in the center of the city.  It is visible in the photo above, along with some of the old and newer buildings in the city center.

The city is quite literally built on the ruins of older versions of itself.  This is fairly evident in the above photo.  In the left foreground is the beginning of the excavation of a Roman stadium.  The rest of it remains buried under the city, but visitors can look past the merchants and artist stands to see down into the seats of an ancient stadium on their way to do their shopping.

The most famous and eye-catching site in Plovdiv is the ruins of the ancient Roman theatre.

As is the case with many larger ruins from the ancient world, this one was discovered by accident and then reconstructed.  Other than some deep foot-shaped wear evident in an inspection conducted by Anne, the first twenty rows or so of the audience seating have remained mostly intact over the centuries.  The stage and the stage building have been reconstructed by archaeologists.  We were told that they still use this site for performances, but it was not in use while Anne and Mark were there, so they did not see one.

Anne P. - C.S.I.

After seeing the big name sites, Anne and Mark did a walking tour around Plovdiv's "Old Town" and took in some art.  As avid readers of this blog would expect, both Anne and Mark are now experts on art and culture (see Opera review - Venice), and are more than willing to share their insights and impressions of various artworks with the rest of the world.

As previously mentioned, Anne and Mark have yet to master the Bulgarian language, but roughly translated, the title of this one is "Help, I'm stuck inside this rock!"  Actually, this kind of looks familiar.  Where have we seen this before?

Han Solo frozen in carbonite

Like the ruins, many of the sculptures in Plovdiv are life size (or larger) and visitors can get as close as they like to enjoy the experience.

I was framed.

After an afternoon of art and culture, Anne and Mark went with a colleague to lunch (note: the colleague in question is a native Bulgarian who studied at the University of Iowa, which makes him uniquely able to translate from Bulgarian to Iowan and back - a handy skill to have in this particular place on this particular day, but probably useless everywhere else in the world, at all times).  The place we went was actually a wedding reception hall, but they were happy to have any visitors at all in the off-season.  The lunch there was delicious and we took advantage of the site to snap a few photos.

Anne's chin singed by candle; Mark celebrates international track suit day.

At the end of the trip, we ventured to the oldest ruins in town which were built on a hill that could see over the surrounding valley.  Although the ruins have not withstood the test of time, the view has certainly held up.

Plovdiv at dusk.