Plovdiv ancient Rome. He is the very story of the life of European peoples. It even looks like a layered cake. In the city center there is a descent down to the Roman amphitheaters and to the street. During ancient Rome there was a city. The earliest settlements date back to the 6th millennium BC.
Plovdiv is a city of seven hills. On the first hill with the name Bunardzhik, there is the park of the hero of the liberator Alyosha. The monumental Alyosha rises above the whole of Plovdiv. Beautiful park, well maintained with beautiful views of the city. In Bulgaria, people are grateful. They remember who helped them, who freed, who fought for their independence. This is a very good quality inherent in all the people. It is both memory and love in their hearts.
Another hill called Markov, was dismantled into stones for the construction of the city. Dismantle a high mountain into stones. How old is the city? To answer this question will have to go deeper into the history of mankind.
We visited another hill with the remains of the Nebet Tepe fortress – the guardian hill. It is a long-standing place of the 4th century BC. with the remains of a fortress on top of a mountain. Unusual place. It seems to be an ordinary mountain peak, but here everything is different – and the colors are not the same and the transparency of the air, and in general, good, gracious. There are too many visitors, but this is understandable, everyone wants to be in such a good place.
Before the conquest of the Macedonian king Philip II, Plovdiv was a Thracian city called Eumolpia, and after Pulpudev and then Audris. The Romans called the city of Trimontius. In the 9th century, it was called Pyldin. During the Ottoman Empire, Plovdiv was called Filipe. That’s how many names a small city has!
In the 8th-9th centuries, Plovdiv was the center of pilgrimage. From bogomiliya went the development of the Cathars in Languedoc. This is a mixture of esotericism, oriental teachings, ancient cults and philosophical views. Qatar, as a historical phenomenon, we studied in France. Cathars and bogomiliya cause me great personal resonance and interest. Bogomiliya was a progressive course for its time, talking about the breadth of views and the level of people. Plovdiv still has openness and respect for various beliefs. There are mosques, churches and the adoption of various views.
The train from Sofia to Plovdiv takes 2.5 hours, the ticket costs about 10 lev about 5 dollars. The road goes first along the valley, and then between the mountains covered with trees. A stormy mountain river with muddy green-brown water flows along the railway.
The Maritsa River flows through Plovdiv, which divides the city into 2 parts – northern and southern. In ancient times, the river was called Gebr. Her name sounds old sounds and sends me to the past.
We settled in the old part of town. Around the bend of our street, ancient houses began. Maybe because the Ottomans lived and ruled the city from the 14th to the 19th century, there is a mixture of oriental and western styles in the city. We went to the Juma mosque, on one side of it was a boulevard going from the mosque to the river. It is noisy and busy at any time. On the other hand, there is an antique amphitheater, going down, and then begins the street of Alexander I with beautiful houses of the 19th century and active pedestrian traffic.
Wandering the streets of Plovdiv is a real pleasure. Behind every turn something unusual opens up – carved windows, unusual architecture. They dig up a lot of things in the city. In the excavation scheme, I saw that there was still more to be excavated than was excavated now.
For myself, I highlighted the ancient Plovdiv with a restored theater, a stadium and many ancient buildings that are excavated in the center. And another part of Plovdiv is a medieval city. This includes the churches of St. Demetrius, St. Marina, the Church of the Holy Week, the Church of Helena and Constantine, the Ethnographic Museum, and the streets and houses adjacent to them.
Roads in the city are mainly made of cobblestone, and in the ancient part of Plovdiv, which is several meters below the modern city, the road is made of very large stones, pieces of rock more than a meter in diameter. I felt an unusual sensation when I walked along such a road, as if you were walking along a mountain.
I was in Plovdiv for 2 days. This is very little for such an interesting city full of endless history.
I want to return for a deeper study of Plovdiv
04/12/19
Belena Travel Blog 