Exploring Plovdiv

Monday, March 19

After several days in the 60s and 70s it became cold and rainy once again.  While we waited for the rain to stop we visited a museum called the Cultural Center Trakart.  The museum contains the remnants of a private home owned by the Eirene family from the third and fourth centuries.  You can still see the layout of the rooms and the gardens.  Large portions of the mosaic floors are still intact.  The museum provided a pamphlet that explained all of the symbolism in the motifs that were on display.  They also had an incredible, unrelated, collection of ancient glass dating from the second century BC to the second century AD.

(Ancient Polychromatic Glass Bowl)

The museum is situated in an underpass that is at the road level of ancient times.  The underpass is paved with stones similar to the Appian Way and dates from Roman times.  It is still used by hundreds of people each day.

It was still raining when we left the museum so decided to do another indoor activity.  We headed over to the Plovdiv City Gallery of Art where they exhibit modern works from Bulgarian artists from the late 20th and 21st centuries.  We were obviously the first visitors of the day.  As soon as we paid our eight leva one of the attendants ran about the gallery and turned on all of the lights.

The first floor contains a rotating exhibit.  The current exhibit featured collages on metal backgrounds that had been rusted for effect.  The second floor contained the permanent exhibit.  There was almost a complete lack of information on the works.  Most were labeled in Bulgarian but there was no description of the art or the artists in any language.

We stopped for coffee at a place called Central Perk.  If that sounds familiar it is because that is the name of the coffee house from the TV show Friends.  The layout is designed to be similar to its namesake.  Instead of tables and chairs it is filled with sofas, armchairs and coffee tables and the walls are decorated with scenes from the TV show.  We ordered two cappuccinos and inquired about pastries (the menu was in Bulgarian and in a font that Google Translate could not handle).  Fortunately, our waitress spoke perfect English.  She informed us that all of the pastries were frozen and advised us that our best bet was the chocolate brownie.  The coffee was great.  We could have done without the brownie.

(Photo Bombed by our Waitress)

Warmed by our coffee we headed to the other side of the Maritsa River to see another part of Town.  We ambled down the main thoroughfare and over a pedestrian bridge that contained many interesting shops.  We stopped at one store and bought sugared almonds (we thought that they were salted), several flavors of Turkish delight candies and some dried figs.  The bridge led to an area that had a large casino and many residential buildings.  In the distance we could see some office buildings.  We walked along the river for about a mile and crossed another bridge to get back to our side once again.  We tried to take some pictures of the river but the weather had turned cold and misty with strong winds.  We’ll try again in a few days.

According to our map the Plovdiv synagogue was nearby and we headed in that direction.  Along the way we found an Eastern Orthodox church dedicated to St George.  We stopped in to see it.  No photography was permitted.

We wandered the streets looking for the synagogue for about 20 minutes.  If it exists we couldn’t find it.  We’ll try again on a nicer day when we have more patience.

By now we were hungry so we walked to the center of Town and ate at a restaurant called Gusto.  It had been recommended by many websites.  It featured brick oven pizzas (the menu called them “pizzas on fire”) and other Italian specialties.  We ordered a bacon pizza.  It came with onions and sweet peppers.  The bacon was really just ham but it was tasty.  It was not as good as the street pizza in Sofia which costs 1/10th the price.

After lunch we went in search of another art gallery on the other side of Tsar Simeon Park.  We surmise that the gallery is in the same place as the synagogue.  We never found it.  We took some pictures of a nearby statue of Philip II of Macedonia and called it a day.  We were anxious to get inside where it was warm and dry.

Distance walked: 7.5 miles

Tuesday, March 20

We got a late start so we began our day with lunch.  We went to another recommended restaurant called Diana.  This restaurant features authentic Bulgarian cuisine.  The menu was very large and featured many typical native dishes such as fried liver, tripe and calves tongue.  We did not order any of those.  We chose fried balls of cheese covered in cornflakes, a shopska salad (a Bulgarian salad with chopped cucumbers, tomato, onion, sweet peppers and cheese) and pork schnitzel.  We have no pictures of any of this but it was very tasty.

After lunch we headed over to the Archeological Museum.  They had displays of local artifacts from prehistoric times through the medieval period.  Along the way we saw displays from the stone, copper, bronze and Roman ages.  They had many golden artifacts from Thracian burial mounds that were in fantastic condition.  There was a display showing a remnant of the mosaic floor from an ancient Plovdiv synagogue.  Maybe this was the one we were looking for.

(Silver Mask/Helmet from First Century)

We loved the Archeological Museum in Sofia and this one was just as good.  The last exhibit was a room filled with coins from the 19th and 20th century that had been found in an abandoned factory.  The government found them when the factory was about to be demolished.  It’s rare to see such a fine collection of diverse coins from this period.  When the family heard about the find they sued to recover their property but the government kept the coins and compensated them for their loss.

Needing a little pick-me-up we decided to head over to our favorite Turkish coffee shop for Turkish Tea and baklava.  The tea was strong and is served in glasses rather than ceramic cups.  The baklava was good but not nearly as good as what we had in Sofia.  Ours was made with walnuts.  They also had baklava made with almonds and pistachios.  You know we’re going to try them all!

(Turkish Tea and Baklava)

Yeah, we ate the damn thing before we remembered to take a picture.  We’ve decided that we’re going to start a new series called, “Empty Plates Of The World”.  We hope you’ll tune in.

Distance walked: 4.5 miles

Wednesday, March 21

The barista at the Owlee coffee shop in Sofia had recommended two places here in Plovdiv.  We had already tried The Monkey House and now we were on our way to try Croatoan Coffee House.  It’s a little over one mile from our apartment.

We decided to take the scenic route and explore some other parts of the city.  We discovered an Eastern Orthodox church named the Church of St Peter and St Paul.  I started to take pictures when one of the priests admonished me to stop.  There had been no signs indicating that photography was prohibited.  Instead of being mad the priest attempted to engage us in conversation.  He spoke only Bulgarian – and you know how good our Bulgarian is.  When we indicated that we didn’t understand he just tried harder.  He was very sweet but we were never able to communicate.

We decided that we’d had enough sightseeing and headed towards the coffee house.  It was a small shop at the intersection of two major streets.  We briefly looked at the pastries that were in the window but just ordered two cappuccinos.  The waitress told us to find a table and told us that she’d bring them over.

The coffee was excellent.  They made pretty designs in the foam, which I  really like (I’m going to have to figure out how to do that one of these days).  As we were paying we realized that they were serving Dabov coffee, which we had in Sofia.  It is roasted by a company based in Sofia.  It’s the best coffee we’ve had since we’ve been in Plovdiv.  We remarked to the waitress that we knew this brand.  She suggested that we try the filtered coffee as a way to get more flavor.  We’ll definitely try that next time.

For lunch we went to the Mall Markovo Tepe and ate at the food court.  It’s a typical mall that you might see just about anywhere in the world.  This time we opted for Greek cuisine.  We ordered a gyro sandwich.  Unlike the gyro sandwiches we’ve had before this one had french fries in it.  This seems common in Plovdiv.  For good measure it also came with a side of fries.  You can never have too many carbs.  It was very tasty.  We’re still not sure what the meat was.  It definitely wasn’t lamb but we liked it a lot.

(Gyro with French Fries)

We took the scenic route to the center of Town where we bought some prepared foods for dinner.  We got chicken on a stick and some sausages from the same place we got the ham hock a few days ago.  I guess this day was just all about the food.

Distance walked: 6.8 miles