Blogs from Plovdiv, Plovdiv Province, Bulgaria, Europe

After a good night's sleep in the lovely warm room, I headed down to the breakfast room to get breakfast. I love that this guesthouse/hostel is in a traditional old building and is full of character. The breakfast room is no exception as it has the original foundations of the building on display. The breakfast was great, there was a selection of cereal and breads. You were also given a plate with ham, cheese, egg, cucumber and tomato. There were plenty of different drinks on offer and the homemade lemonade was particularly delicious. Feeling full, I headed out for the day to explore more of Plovdiv. Yesterday, on the walking tour, we had visited the Regional Ethnographic Museum. Since we'd only had a look around the grounds and the exterior of the building, I headed inside ... read more

9th - 11th March 2020 Plovdiv, Bulgaria After taking the first class train (hilarious in itself, but so much better than 2nd class!), we arrived in Plovdiv and caught a taxi to our apartment. The service of Hippo taxis in Varna was second to none. They dropped us off initially and didnt try to rip us off, they prebooked a taxi for our departure, and they showed up right on time as promised. Why would it be any different in Plovdiv? Dirty old thief. This ride cost us three times as much for the same distance in a grotty old taxi, where he used a hand held navigator and pretended not to know where he was going. Then he dropped us off at the top of the street indicating he couldnt go any further because it ... read more

HE SAID... Today were travelling southwest from Veliko Tarnovo to Plovdiv. We woke to the sound of the church bell close to our hotel. We were leaving by train for Plovdiv, and it was an early start, so there were no cafes open for breakfast. We’d picked up some bananas and water the night before, but we would have killed for a cup of tea or coffee. We jumped into a taxi outside our hotel and headed to the Veliko Tarnovo railway station on the outskirts of town. We ate our bananas while we waited for the train to arrive, then walked across the tracks and jumped onto the nearest carriage when it finally rolled in about half an hour behind schedule. Unluckily, every eight-seat cabin was full, and those that weren’t full were not very ... read more

Geo: 42.7252, 25.4815Woke up to rain this morning. Boo.The breakfast room is very large, has a couple of buffet lines, and was filled with people. I was sitting at a table with Barb and Moody, and Stefan eventually sat down with us. He told us of one time when he had a group from Texas. There was a very large group of Israelis in the breakfast room too, and they proceeded to fill their plates, piling more and more food on. Stefan noticed that one large Texan man in particular was slowly blowing his fuse. He eventually exclaimed, "They've taken the apple right off my plate!" He seethed a little more and then got up and approached the table of Israelis and barked, "You do not take food off of other people's plates! You took something ... read more

We decided to split the Bucharest - Istanbul journey up a little so we took a night off Bucharest to spend "somewhere" in Bulgaria. On the advice of someone we briefly met this place turned out to be Plovdiv, a small and pretty old town in the south. The drive was long, but made manageable by the good views across Bulgaria. It was much prettier and the roads were much better than we all expected. The Romania-Bulgaria boarder took a while due to the bridge being under repair but a bit of football with the boarder guards made that wait easier. Early start today and now we're off to Turkey. We're expecting this to be the first long wait at a boarder crossing, but who knows :) I'll update you all tonight if I'm not shattered! ... read more