Plovdiv

We had an interesting night in our lodgings, first of all the toilet flush system broke, I for some reason was blamed for it, with me supposedly being too rough when pulling the flush. The flush was like a big button on top of the cistern which you pulled up rather than the normal pushing in. David did try to fix it but we could only get the toilet to flush by lifting the cistern slightly. This worked for a while but then that also stopped but interestingly the toilet then started to flush constantly, so we had the constant sound of a filling cistern serenading us in our rooms. We soon got fed up with that, luckily the stopcock for the cold water was right by the cistern, so when we went to the loo we had to switch the water on and then after flushing leave time for the cistern to fill and then switch it off again. When we arrived at our lodgings we were shown our apartment by a man who understood very little English, but we had also spoken to his daughter on the phone as she could speak English. It just so happened that she  phoned that night so we told her about the saga with the toilet, she said she would mention it to her dad and he may pop round. He didn't! So we had two days fighting with the toilet plumbing. 

The next day we headed for Plovdiv which is the second largest city in Bulgaria after Sofia. It is a beautiful city with many old buildings with very interesting architecture and a lot of Roman ruins. Plovdiv is surrounded by 6 hills, there used to be 7 but one was destroyed when they used stones from it to make buildings. 

In what is classed as the new town there are many interesting statues and buildings. This is also where you can see the remains of a Roman coliseum, in which chariot races once took place. This meant it was very long. Unfortunately, because we had the dogs with us we could not go to the tourist centre to find out more about it but we could see the remains of one of the ends. 

The new town is also where all the main shops are. Plovdiv has been chosen to be the European city of Culture in 2019, of which they are very proud. 

There is a lovely precinct area to wander around in the new town as well as a park. Luckily for David  there were several geocaches in the area, which helped to keep him out of mischief although it did earn us some dodgy looks from passer bys as he ferreted around benches, scrutinised bins and stroked railings! Thankfully we did find some, so he went back to our lodgings with a smile on his face. 

The dogs behaved very well and Monty seemed to enjoy city life. 

If you look closely at the seating in this area you will see the seats look like big buttons. A geocache was under one which was right beside an elderly gentleman, He didn't say anything but you could tell he thought we were behaving  a bit odd. 

This is some of the Roman remains. 

We then wandered up to the old town, which has lots of little cobbled lanes and very interesting old timber framed 19th century  buildings. By now though we were getting very  hot and tired and being extra careful not to over tire Monty we headed back to the car. 

The photo below shows art work on the gable end of one of the buildings. 

We would definitely go back to Plovdiv , as it is a beautiful city with so much to explore, unfortunately we were a bit limited because we had the dogs with us.