A love letter to Plodiv

Plovdiv gets overshadowed by Sofia, but between you and me, it’s the better city. I planned to stay three days and ended up staying eight. Something about the combination of ancient ruins, Ottoman architecture, and communist-era buildings covered in street art just worked for me.

The Old Town is a maze of cobblestone streets winding up a hill, lined with National Revival houses painted in bright blues, yellows, and oranges. These houses, with their jutting upper floors and symmetrical windows, are unique to this period of Bulgarian history. Several are now museums or galleries, and I spent an afternoon hopping between them.

What makes Plovdiv special is how casually it treats its history. There’s a Roman amphitheater in the middle of the city that’s still used for concerts. I caught a performance there one evening, sitting on 2,000-year-old stone seats while the sun set over the Rhodope Mountains in the distance. The acoustics are still perfect.

Walking through the city center, you’ll randomly encounter Roman ruins. There’s a stadium under the main pedestrian street, and you can see parts of it through glass panels in the pavement. An ancient forum sits in a sunken area between modern buildings. It’s like the past is constantly breaking through to the present.

The food scene surprised me. I expected traditional Bulgarian food and got that - shopska salad, banitsa, kebapche - but there’s also a growing creative food movement. I had an incredible meal at a tiny restaurant where the chef reinterpreted traditional dishes with modern techniques. Banitsa deconstructed into layers of crispy phyllo, cheese foam, and herbs? It shouldn’t work, but it did.

Kapana, the creative district, became my favorite area. Former workshops and warehouses have been converted into cafes, galleries, and studios. The streets are covered in murals, and there’s a laid-back, artsy vibe. I spent several afternoons in a coffee shop there, watching the neighborhood’s residents and feeling like I’d found a local secret.

One evening I hiked up to Nebet Tepe, one of the ancient hills the city was built on. From there, you can see the whole city spread out below, the minarets and church spires and communist apartment blocks all mixed together. It’s a visual history of every civilization that’s passed through here.

Plovdiv is proof that you don’t need to visit the most famous places to have amazing travel experiences. Sometimes the best cities are the ones that haven’t figured out they’re special yet.