Pottering in Plovdiv

After our day of rest and washing yesterday, this morning we were sufficiently re-energised to get out and explore the town. Despite our less than positive first impressions (we were after all extremely spaced out and sleep deprived) we have both rather fallen for Plovdiv. It's a very quaint, shabby, laid back town where life seems to move at a leisurely pace - as unlike Istanbul as you can imagine. The Old Quarter is perfect for pottering: a picturesque maze of little cobbled streets, ornately decorated Orthodox churches, colourful wooden mansions and Roman ruins. We had a peek at the amphitheatre - Plovdiv's main tourist attraction - which you can see perfectly well from behind the gates without paying to get in. The town has some lovable quirks such as random comic statues and lots of elongated wall murals, and is full of cats. While we were out we noticed that absolutely everyone was wearing little red and white wristbands and asked the uber-friendly guy in the hostel what they were for. Apparently they symbolise happiness and health and you're supposed to wear them until you see the first blossom of spring, or a stork....at which point you then tie the band on to a blossoming tree for fertility. We saw them tied on to lots of trees, shops and even church doors. When in Bulgaria, do as the Bulgarians...we have duly bought one each and are now watching out for storks.

It was a good day to be in Bulgaria, as today is their National Day of Independence (the day they split from the Ottoman Empire in 1878) and there was a holiday atmosphere in town with a brass band playing folk tunes, interspersed with Abba hits for some reason, Bulgarian flags everywhere (red, white and green in horizontal stripes, since you ask) and lots of families treating themselves to coffee and sticky cakes in the town's big central cafe. Sarah and I enjoyed incredibly rich hot chocolate there and soaked up the atmosphere. In the afternoon we decided to climb one of the hills of Plovdiv to get a view of the whole town - Plovdiv was built on seven hills but now there are only six thanks to the communist regime tearing one down (how do you even do that?) to get rubble for building. We ended up climbing the hill of the "Liberators" (apostrophes intended) which has a massive statue of a Soviet soldier on top looking noble on a plinth carved with happy looking communists. The so-called liberation was highly dubious on two fronts, firstly because Bulgaria had freely chosen to side with the Germans and hadn't been occupied by them to any significant extent, and secondly because it began a period of oppression and stagnation for 40 years, which began with thousands of dissidents being sent to death camps. Bulgarian history is actually really interesting and very very complicated - first the Greeks, then the Romans, then their own empire (biggest in Europe at one point!) followed by constant tribal wars interspersed with repeated attempts to become independent of whichever large empire was on the up at the time. This trip is making us both realise how little history we actually know and we have all sorts of plans for self improvement when we get back. Next to the Soviet statue was a much humbler war memorial to all Bulgarians killed in conflict which was heaped with fresh flowers. We noticed flower sellers at the top of the hill and a lot of elderly people dressed in their Sunday best climbing the hill (much faster than we were to our shame) to lay flowers at the memorial - this is evidently something you do on the national day. It was all rather touching.

Everything in Plovdiv seems to shut down at about 7pm, even on their national day, so we spent this evening eating pasta cooked by a very nice Australian couple staying in the hostel, playing cards and watching bizarre Bulgarian television (national armwrestling anyone?). On to Sofia tomorrow with clean clothes and good impressions of Bulgaria so far.