Bulgaria - Day 18

We were travelling home today, but had the morning to kill first. After breakfast we checked out and packed our luggage into the car. We then drove to the bottom of Youth Hill, and climbed up it. I think it's the highest of the hills in Plovdiv.

It was quite cool and there was rain not too far away.

We went down to the bottom of the hill and got there just as the tiny Children's Railway train was arriving at the end of its track.

We then left Plovdiv to drive to Sofia Airport. On the way we had to drive through some really torrential rain.

After handing the car back we had plenty of time, so we spent the last of our Bulgarian Levs in the bar and the shop.

The flight was pretty much on time, and we arrived back in Edinburgh about 6pm. We caught the tram and train back home, though the timing meant we had to go into Edinburgh itself and change at Haymarket.

Bulgaria - Day 17

Breakfast in the hotel was quite good, eggs, sausage, cheese, meat, toast, cake etc. Also with homemade lemonade.

We were going to go for the free Plovdiv guided tour at 11, so we had a bit of time to kill first. We walked down to Alyosha hill and climbed to the top. It has good views and a statue of a Russian soldier at the top.

We then went to join the tour. Coincidentally it was their 7th birthday, so we got some champagne and cookies.

Our guide for the tour was Nenko.

We first walked up through the Kapano district, the bohemian part of the city with small houses, street art, cobbled streets and lots of places to eat and drink.

Nenko then took us to the Old Town, which has bigger houses and is where the rich people lived. We saw that the walls and buildings have many layers, with the bottom layers dating from Roman times.

The last stop on the tour was the Roman theatre.

After leaving the tour we walked to Nebet Hill, which is covered in ruins.

We decided to visit one of the villas, Balabanov's House, which is laid out with original furniture.

Back in Kapana we went for a craft beer at the Cat and Mouse bar. It was nice but very expensive compared to normal Bulgarian beer.

On the way back to the hotel we went into the archaeological museum, which has a lot of gold artefacts which have been found locally.

Later we went out, stopping for a drink at Club Nylon first.

The we went for dinner to a restaurant in the old town near the Roman theatre, the Citizen's Club. We sat out in the courtyard, and the food was very nice. We had mushrooms and French fries to start with, followed by two satch dishes (hot plate) - one lamb and one vegetable.

Bulgaria - Day 16

We left the apartment this morning to head for Plovdiv, the second city of Bulgaria, where we have an hotel booked with booking.com for 2 nights. Plovdiv is the 2019 European Capital of Culture.

On the way we stopped for a break at the town of Stara Zagora. We had a walk round the centre, there are some impressive roman ruins just near the main park.

From the motorway on the journey we noticed that a lot of the sunflowers which had been a startling yellow a week earlier were now past there best and not so noticeable.

We drove on to Plovdiv and found the Hotel Ego. It has its own parking places, which is fortunate.

After unpacking a bit we went out for a walk. We found the pedestrianised centre, where there is a Roman stadium under the shopping streets, and just next to the mosque.

Plovdiv is built on seven hills, so we decided to climb up one of them, Danov Hill. There were good views from the top, especially of the other hills.

Once we got back down we had a drink at a cafe, then made our way back to the hotel along the bank of the River Maritsa.

In the evening we went out for dinner to a Turkish restaurant, the PASA. We had salad, bread, meatballs, a lamb dish and drinks, and it came to about £14.

In the Tsar Simeon gardens there is a free Singing Fountains show at night, so we went to watch this.