My First Visit To Plovdiv

I enjoyed a lovely two-week holiday to Bulgaria with my sister Margaret in the middle of September (2017).  We decided to fly to Sofia from Birmingham (which we have done before) and then make our way across the country to our apartment in St Vlas.  Okay – you may think it seems a bit barmy to fly to the west of the country to go and stay at our apartment on the east but there were several reasons why we decided to do this.

1. The flights from Birmingham to Sofia (we flew with Ryanair) were dirt cheap …. £10.99 per person each way including 10kgs cabin luggage.  We most definitely booked our seats just at the right time as they, particularly the flight back, increased dramatically as time went on.  We wanted to fly from Birmingham anyway so it suited us just fine.
2. We like to see other parts of the country.  Our plan was to get the bus from Sofia to St Vlas as soon as we landed (obviously subject to bus leaving times) and to break our journey on the way back with a couple of nights at Plovdiv which, as you can see from the map above, is sort of half way between St Vlas and Sofia.  Have a look at Visit Plovdiv  to give you a bit of an idea of the city.  Or visit Wikipedia for info on its history etc.  The journey (both there and back) did have its problems, to say the least – but that story can be for another day!

Shame About The Weather!!

We were so lucky with the weather when we were still at St Vlas but unfortunately the weather decided to do a complete turnaround.  One day it was hot and glorious but the next day (our first full day in Plovdiv) the heavens opened and it poured down throughout our stay.  I know you shouldn’t let the weather spoil anything but it really was very wet and it prevented us from looking at some of the places we intended to see.  Never mind – there’s always next year …

As we didn’t venture far I only took photos of the more central parts but here are some of them.  I hope you find them of some interest …..

This building had some surprising features inside ….

This welcomed you as you entered the building ..

And this chap was on the other side  …..

Escalators took you down (and back up of course) to the lower ground floor ….

Where there was this …

And this ….

I think they must use this area for concerts etc.  It wasn’t very big but there were chairs stacked up to the one side and there was also a piano.  Great acoustics no doubt!

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There was the usual mixture of architecture around the city …

Did I mention it was raining !! …..

Hopefully we’ll go again next year – fingers crossed it won’t be raining!