Plovdivian Promenade - Plovdiv (Пловдив)

Plovdiv has many great stories and little cute anecdotes to pique your curiosity. These span over SIX THOUSAND continually inhabited YEARS! So, just like with Bulgarian Menus, you can choose a page (of history), something you like, and not really know what you're going to get at all. But what is sure is that you are getting a massive serving. 

Typical space-gaining 2nd floors

Extract of a traditional Bumgarian restaurant's menu which I came accross

A more recent and very much unknown fact about this place, is that the third episode of Ukulele Road Trips Podcast was recorded there. It's an Easter special with plovidivy themed chit-chat, just what the place and season demanded. You should give it a listen I reckon.

If you like hills, cobblestones, nice views and Roman Theaters, you're in for a treat. They have respectively 6, a lot, a few, and one nice one. On the other hand, if you're more into 'walking only' high streets, well... you're also at the right place. Plovidv (and this is totally unchecked information by the way) has the longest in Europe! So you can take a stroll with your girlfriend/lover/trophy wife, or an ice cream, whatever makes you happiest, while under your feet silently snooze thousands of years of history. I mention this because they did recently dig up part of a Roman chariot racing track, but did not excavate the whole thing because that would have meant tearing the whole historical city center apart. Sensible thinking that.

In all these pages of the history-menu turned by a promenade in Plovdiv (and a great free walking tour), the humble story of a charming mustachioed man during the Communist Dictatorship caught my attention. Violinist Sasha the Sweetheart. Not the best name, but I'm guessing it sounds better in Bulgarian. A passionate musician, and as you can guess from his twinkling smile, a sweet humourous entertainer. Sadly, one joke too many, and to the wrong people, lead him to "disappear" all of a sudden in 1961, quite probably to a labour camp. Today, his beaming statue watches over the streams of sunglasses and tourists that pass by the old music school to take a peak at the Roman Theater.

Sasha's statue-smile, undisturbed

Buzludzha - Бузлуджа

It's not easy to understand Buzludzha. It's at the very top of one of the highest peaks of the central Balkan mountains. You get there after a long drive up winding roads, in the ever-cold Balkan wind. And the closer you get to it, the more unbelievable it becomes. It's all very surrealistic, and very much incomprehensible.

Until you walk in. Because once you walk in, you realise that what was practical didn't matter. Just like the pyramids or giant statues on hilltops, what mattered was the symbol. The greatness of the structure, the beauty of the mosaics and the madness of the endeavour all serve one purpose: bowing to the System. Revering the abstract God-like leader, the Ideology.

"Great buildings from this will arise, The famed grandeur of Bulzludzha, Will immortalise, The greatest system here by far..."

This Monument to Bulgarian socialism was completed in 1981, hosting party ceremonies, meetings and even concerts. Although how they actually got everything and everyone up there is beyond my understanding.

It is build on the spot of an important victory against the Ottoman rulers in 1868, and commemorates (if I am not mistaken) the first secret Bulgarian socialist meeting in 1891.

Buzludzah, despite the freezing cold, the ice, everywhere, is still pretty much standing. Bits and pieces are falling off, but the "Party" sure made solid constructions.

Rocks ! - in Belogradchik

And after a big long bus ride, I was there: The rocks of Belogradchik. The beauty of 230 million years of natural sculpting of noble sandstone, paleozoic rocks and iron oxide... which I saw absolutely nothing of, because my bus arrived during the night.

The next day, however, a wondrous feast for the geology enthusiast. As far as the eye can see and the feet can take you: ROCKS !

Quite the place for the climbing enthusiast too. So all in all, quite a lot of enthusiasts' cup of enthusiastic tea. Funnily enough there only seemed to be German rock climbers around. Maybe these kind of places are word of mouth hidden wonders, which get passed around discretely in German climbing gatherings, through secret -and slighlty scrapped and scratched- handshakes.

One of the most outstanding viewpoints in these parts (Belogradchik, not German climbing gatherings) is the very much breathtaking Belogradchik Fortress. It has belonged, and been used by all the passing empires and kingdoms the Balkans have seen rule - "Through this fresh air many flags have flown". Unfortunately for them, they have all fallen,

"Millenniums have passed before them, Human strife, throughout the ages. Love and war, women and men, They disappear, the guns and roses"

but the fortress, and the rocks that make it such a unique place, still stand. As you may have understood, "These rocks ain't rollin" away in no great hurry. The Roman, Bulgarian and Ottoman Empires as well as Bulgarian revolutionaries were here watched upon by these great big stones, and they now watch upon tourists lucky enough to have braved the prejudices about the region's infrastructure (which is absolutely fine, I thought). This fine place is certainly worth more than a quick stop, and even worth a long hike or two.