Plovdiv

Wow! The apartment is lovely. Right in the centre. Everything on our doorstep. The apartment is in an old traditional city building. Huge rooms, high ceilings, massive windows. Lovely quirky retro decoration. Warm and welcoming.

`Billa` supermarket around the corner, so we are soon stocked up with essentials. Bit late for lunch, bit early for dinner, but we are both starving so find a restaurant. The Amsterdam. Lovely food, nice wine. We ate in the bright airy garden room. Downstairs is a `wine room` tastfully made to look like the red light district. Complete with faux curtained doors. Its fabulous. We will be back!

Go a good walk around today, its Sunday so very quiet. There is an art installation around the old amphitheater in the town. Bits of the Berlin wall with paintings on. Wonderful and completely free, just there in the pedestrian street. (That would work in London - not!) Also, several Trebant cars covered in arty graffiti. They look great. Its freezing cold, so we find a fabulous Turkish Pasa (restaurant) for soup, bread, Ayran for me, beer for Norman. Ayran - yoghurt, water and salt, delicious.

Talking cars, we even came across an old Moskvitch 408! Bit tatty but ok.

Plovdiv is so different to Sofia. The architecture is more `small town`. Its a very old city dating back to medieval times. The decoration on the buildings in the little hilly cobbled streets is lovely. I took loads of photos, but have only added a few so far. Lots of beautiful churches of all faiths. The view from the top of the hill (Nebet Tepe) is lovely. One way you see the old town, a mismatch of terracotta roofs. The other way is the modern new city.

1st March is a special day. Its a National holiday. People buy and exchange red and white cotton bracelets and badges as a symbol of health and happiness.