So after another heavy night out in Komotini, we wearily got out of bed 5:30 in the morning, and made our way to the train station, to catch the train to Svilengrad, in southern Bulgaria. After a delay of over an hour, the train finally left. After a 4-hour journey, and some very "interesting" (or maybe more like very slow and inefficient) border formalities, we finally arrived in Bulgaria - only to see our train for Plovdiv pull out of the station. Which meant that we had to wait 3 hours - and let me tell you, Svilengrad is not a very happening place...
So we were quite happy when we eventually arrived in Plovdiv. It's the 2nd city of Bulgaria, and a very nice one at that. It has a lot of history, a very nice old town, and it's not very touristy (and very cheap!). We didn't have time to much in the evening, apart from finding lodgings at a nice hostel just outside the city centre.
We started Friday by having a walk around town, taking in the old Roman amphitheatre, apparently one of the best-preserved ones in the Balkans (and impressive it was, indeed!). After this, we took a minibus to Batchkovo Monastery, which as our guidebook told us is the 2nd most-important monastery in Bulgaria. For sure the tourist-trade peddlers had wised up to this fact - you could buy anything from holy water to plastic toy guns at the small stands lining up the road to the monastery.
The monastery itself was rally nice, though, located in a lush valley surrounded by tree-covered mountains. On the inside, it actually felt like a very beautiful and peaceful place, not too badly touched by commercialism. It is actually still a working monastery (which unfortunately meant we could only visit the church - which was very pretty, though).
We then took the bus back to Plovdiv and spent the rest of the day calmly exploring the beautiful old town - a really nice are with its cobble-stone streets anf national revival architecture. To finish off the day we walked up Bunardjika (Hill of the Liberators) - where we were rewarded by some great views overlooking the city. After this we had a very nice (and extremely reasonably-priced!) meal at a nice restaurant at the foot of the hill.
So we were quite happy when we eventually arrived in Plovdiv. It's the 2nd city of Bulgaria, and a very nice one at that. It has a lot of history, a very nice old town, and it's not very touristy (and very cheap!). We didn't have time to much in the evening, apart from finding lodgings at a nice hostel just outside the city centre.
We started Friday by having a walk around town, taking in the old Roman amphitheatre, apparently one of the best-preserved ones in the Balkans (and impressive it was, indeed!). After this, we took a minibus to Batchkovo Monastery, which as our guidebook told us is the 2nd most-important monastery in Bulgaria. For sure the tourist-trade peddlers had wised up to this fact - you could buy anything from holy water to plastic toy guns at the small stands lining up the road to the monastery.
The monastery itself was rally nice, though, located in a lush valley surrounded by tree-covered mountains. On the inside, it actually felt like a very beautiful and peaceful place, not too badly touched by commercialism. It is actually still a working monastery (which unfortunately meant we could only visit the church - which was very pretty, though).
We then took the bus back to Plovdiv and spent the rest of the day calmly exploring the beautiful old town - a really nice are with its cobble-stone streets anf national revival architecture. To finish off the day we walked up Bunardjika (Hill of the Liberators) - where we were rewarded by some great views overlooking the city. After this we had a very nice (and extremely reasonably-priced!) meal at a nice restaurant at the foot of the hill.
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