FLIGHT OF THE PHOENIX: Plovdiv, Kazanlak & Veliko Tarnovo

First and foremost, one can never overappreciate a good buffet breakfast. Out of nowhere, we were treated to one of the best buffet breakfasts we've had (apart from high end luxury hotels in Asia). Breakfast at Villa Antica at a quiet unassuming little cafe attached next door. We were greeted with a great variety of European delicacies of amazing standards. Freshly made home-made pastries just kept coming out! It certainly made a great start to the day!

Home made goodies!

Your choice of yoghurt

At this point, everyone was suffering from analysis paralysis

What! Rice pudding for breakfast! Yes please said the children!

Even the fruit was artisticallly presented. Fresh and sweet

Malcolm found his chia pudding. He was home

Latte

I don't know what this was, but it was delicious!

The cafe was tiny, we took up most of the free seats

Cafe from the outside

Next on the agenda was a walking tour of Old Town Plovdiv. Depending on what you read, Plovidv is anywhere between Europe’s oldest to 6th oldest continuously inhabited city. I suppose either way, it is OLD. A wonderful feature of the city are the various remains of the Roman buildings from over 2000 years ago. It was handy to have a guide to go through the history of the city, country as well as the significance of various buildings and people. When we finished, we discovered we had been walking for 2 hours!

Let's start our walking tour!

Statue of Milo, believed to grant you your wish if you whisper it in his ear and touch his knee

A model of what the Roman stadium would have looked like About 250m long and able to seat 30,000!

Only the Northern end has been excavated as it lies under the main pedestrian street in town

The first level is high for protection of the patrons

Sundial outside the 14th century Djoumaya Mosque

Church of the Holy Mother of God, where the first church service was held in the Bulgarian language and the beginning of the independence of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church from the Greek. As an interesting aside, the bell towers of churches were only added after Bulgaria was liberated from the Ottoman Empire as the Muslim regime had a rule forbidding churches to be bigger or more ornate than their mosques!

Roman amphitheatre

Beautiful streets of Old Plovdiv

Plovdiv Regional Ethnographic Museum, in a house built in 1847, an example of a Plovdiv Renaissance symmetrical house

We drove out of Plovidv north to Kazanlak, the main city of the famous Rose Valley. This valley has been a centre of rose oil production and export for centuries. Bulgaria is the main producer of rose oil, a form of liquid gold. Expensive because of the labour intensive harvesting methods. The roses only bloom for 3 weeks of the year and needed to be handpicked as only the ones which are in full bloom can be picked. Unfortunately during winter all the rose bushes looked brown...

The Rose Valley was also known as the Valley of the Thracian King with the discovery of Thracian tombs dotted throughout the area. We had to be given a crash course on who the Thracians were by Nick. They were essentially warrior type communities and were the earliest recorded inhabitants of the area. The tombs were a UNESCO World Heritage site and has been closed off to the public for about a decade to preserve the paintings in the interior. They had built a replica that visitors can walk into for 6 lev per adult. A word of warning, when they call it beehive tomb, the description is very apt! It is literally one tiny dome and a short antechamber...

We had to have some greens

My lunch of chicken and mushrooms. Surprising tasty!

The small short antechamber

The ornate frescoes in the "beehive" tomb

Next stop...Veliko Tarnovo, the former capital of Bulgaria. Our driver had to commended for the feat of reversing a long minivan up a narrow road to take us to our lodging for the night. Hotel Gurko, like the rest of the Veliko Tarnovo was set on the cliffside. It is a charming stone and timber building with spacious rooms and expansive views from the balconys. The furnishings are traditional and some may find it dated but we thought it added to the rustic charm. There was conveniently a tavern next door where our guide made a dinner reservation for us. This turned out to be a good move as we were all exhausted after our walking tour and history lesson of Veliko Tarnovo including Tsarevets Fortress and Samovodene Street, where the local artisans had their workshops. The olds were glad to be able to shop for rose oil products.