Six Hills Plus One (or, Why I Like Plovdiv, Bulgaria)
- charlsiedoan
- Oct 21, 2023
- 5 min read
Updated: Dec 21, 2023
For some reason, I had a feeling I’d like Plovdiv. I think it’s because I always like second cities—Bergen, Rotterdam, Tartu. They’re always a little less touristy, a little less bureaucratic, a little less grand, and all that “less” leaves more room for culture and cafés and universities, the things that make a place feel young, fun, and alive. They always have a little bit of history because they were often the capital in the past. Second cities seem like good places to live.
I think I figured that Plovdiv would follow the trend, because it’s Bulgaria’s second-biggest city. People have lived in the area that is now modern Plovdiv for almost eight thousand years, and it is one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in Europe. Its first rulers were the Thracians, a tribe that gets mentioned quite a bit by the writers of antiquity. Herodotus writes a whole chapter in his History about Thrace—blond, warlike people whose women fight alongside the men. Philip II of Macedonia (father of Alexander the Great) conquered Plovdiv, then called Eumolpias, and renamed it Philippopolis. After…himself. Obviously. The Thracians briefly took it back and renamed it Pulpudeva.
The Romans conquered Philippopolis (say it three times fast!) in 72 BC, right as the republic was collapsing, and renamed it again as Trimontium (City of Three Hills). I don’t know where they came up with three hills, because the city originally had seven hills—just like Istanbul and Rome—and is very obsessed with the fact that it has (had) seven hills. One was turned into building materials, so now there are only six, plus a symbolic little hump (and I do mean little) in the middle of town that’s the “seventh hill.” That way they can still have seven tiny hills on their city flag. The things people get excited about. Trimontium was the capital of the Roman province of Thrace and the city is stuffed with Roman ruins from those times, including a theater, a forum, and a hippodrome.
Matt, Ryan, and I wanted to go inside the ruins of the theater, so I went up to the ticket window to buy tickets for Matt and I (I owed Matt money). The lady told me in broken English, gesturing to my cast, that I only needed to pay for Matt, I didn’t need to buy a ticket. Because I am “disabled.” I didn’t know whether to be offended or to be happy that I saved the four bucks. I decided to just take it as a win, and the three of us went inside to climb around. The theater’s steps are unbelievably steep, and I commented to Matt that drunk Romans had definitely taken spills down those stairs.
Once the Roman empire became Christian and split into east and west, Plovdiv fell under the dominion of the Eastern Roman Empire. Today historians call the Eastern Romans Byzantines to differentiate them from the capital-R Romans in the west. The Russell-Crowe-in-Gladiator Romans. But the Byzantines wouldn’t have called themselves Byzantines; they would have called themselves Romans. Anyway, there are several churches and other structures left over from the Byzantine/Roman era. There’s an entire decorative mosaic floor that used to be the floor of a huge basilica, and you can see it preserved in the Bishop’s Basilica Museum. Birds seemed to be the favorite motif whenever the mosaics were laid—the museum’s logo is the peacock image found in the church’s entryway. When you visit, you have to put coverings over the soles of your shoes to keep the glass clean—so people can actually see through the glass to look at the mosaics on the floor. Everyone else got these blue cotton scrunchy things, but for some reason the lady made me put what was basically plastic shrink wrap over the bottoms of my boots. I was so loud when I walked around.
But let’s move on from historical Plovdiv so I can tell you about Plovdiv today. It’s very lively and young thanks to a large student population, and there’s a pretty nice area called Kapana with bars, restaurants, and cafés. I had a great lunch at a café called Veggic—eggplant and tomato salad with vegan sausage. No carbs, no cheese, no worrying about meat. After five days of heavy Bulgarian food with the group, it made me so happy to not worry about taking insulin for anything.
Plovdiv was one of the European capitals of culture in 2019, which meant it spent a lot of money making the town a very nice place to visit so that when people came to visit a European Capital of Culture, they’d go: “wow, this place is nice!” Our guide told us that the Kapana area used to be mostly a place where drunk people would go to pee in the bushes. But today, it’s quite lovely, as the Aussies would say, and would be a fun place to go with friends on a Friday night. If my friends Evan and Andrew were in Plovdiv with me, I could see us tearing it up. You know how wild me and my friends get (not).
I met up with Matt and Ryan on top of the Soviet monument-topped Bunarijk Hill, one of the tallest of Plovdiv’s hills, to watch the sun set over the city. We sat cross-legged on top of stone walls with twenty or so other young people to watch the sky turn orange. Everybody else had beer and cigarettes. Matt had a grape Fanta. I had water. Less cool.
A guy—maybe twenty, he looked young—approached us to ask Matt and Ryan about their accents. He said they sounded South African. Matt is Australian and Ryan is a Kiwi, and they told him so. I said I was American. “Well, yeah, I knew what your accent was,” he told me. Fair enough. This guy—he introduced himself as Baz after I introduced the three of us—was born in South Africa to Bulgarian parents, and his family had moved back to Bulgaria about two years ago. I talked to him for a while, and before I knew it, the sun was below the horizon and Matt and Ryan were standing up to leave. I said goodbye and got up to follow them.
When we were out of the guy’s earshot, Matt turned to me and told me that they were expecting me to stay with the Bulgarian dude, because he clearly liked me. “We’re leaving because it felt like we were intruding on something,” he said. “You said you wanted to meet someone! There ya go!”
I wasn't going to go there again; I was still traumatized by the whole two-week ordeal with with Norwegian Boy. Plus, this guy was a little too young. It’s enough to know that somebody wants to flirt with me. A nice ego boost. And anyway, Baz was probably just caught up in the ambience. After all, what better place for romance to blossom than in the shadow of the "Monument of the Occupying Red Army"?
Matt gave Ryan a fist bump and said, “cock-block: successful!”
In conclusion, Plovdiv was fun.
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