Plovdiv

Monday, of course, was Labor Day, and since poor Zachariah has to have US and Bulgarian holidays off when we all know he'd rather be working, we took another day trip to Plovdiv, about 2 hrs away. It's the 2nd largest city in Bulgaria, after Sofia, and has loads of cultural and other events. We didn't go to any, but it really has that vibe...you know. It's very old, started out as a Thracian settlement, and then was conquered by Alexander the Great's father, Phillip the II of Macedon (that's a statue of him in the pic below). It also has a lot of history as a literary and art center, and was an important city during the Bulgarian national movement, during Ottoman rule, which led eventually to the uprising/liberation of Bulgaria.

This is the Roman stadium. Most of it is underneath the streets and buildings, but this part you can look down on.

Here's the Roman amphitheatre. It was really fun to go down there! They still perform operas and shows here. How cool would it be to go watch one?! In a 2nd-century Roman amphitheatre...pretty cool...

Nuala and Bran are those itty-bitty people in the front, dancing for the audience.

And a picture from down on the stage.

Ready for the show to start...

The steps were crazy steep. Crazy. And these ones don't really show it well, but some of the others were super worn...as in, there was practically a bowl where your foot would go. Makes you wonder about all the other feet over the centuries that stepped there...

The main pedestrian thouroughfare. The houses and buildings were so pretty. Apparently there are a lot of house museums here, but we didn't feel the timing was right to drag N&B into one of those. Timing = sanity-of-parents, in this case.

Nuala had fun whispering secrets to this old fellow. Bran was a little weirded out.

We stopped for Doners at this little place, and Bran begged and begged to try out the toy machine. So we let him. With Z's help -- just a little -- he snagged a little stuffed puppy on his first try! He was so excited. Unfortunately, then Nuala thought SHE was going to automatically get one, too...Yeah, life is full of disappointments, girlie... The Nuala-sized complaints that erupted (and that is a perfect word for them) when her claw came back empty were slightly embarrassing, but no one knows us there, so oh well!

Pink ice cream afterwards helped make it all better, anyway! She was really good about spooning bits into everyone's mouth, even Bran's. We had such a fun time! Well, there were some 2-yr old moments (besides the toy issue), but still, a fun time. We really are enjoying our opportunity to be here in Bulgaria!

(hey, it's 09/09/09 today!)