Roman Theatre in Plovdiv
This past weekend we went by train to the nearby city of Plovdiv. It took about 2 1/2 hours by an express train from Sofia. It had been snowing for the previous day or so and we arrived to find the city covered in about 30 centimeters of new snow . We stayed at the Plovdiv Guest House, a 1 star hostel in the heart of the old city. It had great reviews on-line and was very clean, safe and comfortable. The location was ideal!
On Saturday morning we took a 2 hour walking tour with a guide from the hostel. The city is amazingly old. The Thracians were there in the 5th millennium B.C. There are some remains of their fortifications and evidence of many subsequent inhabitants as well. Most impressive to me was the Roman Theatre from the 2nd century A. D. pictured above. You can read more about it in Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plovdiv_roman_amphitheatre and http://ideabg.com/clients/oldtown/en/mesta/antichen.php As you can imagine we climbed around to see it from every angle. I even took a couple of pictures showing “backstage” as best I could. Click on my links to pictures to see more of these shots. We’ll have to go back in warmer weather to see a show!
There are other ancient sites in to see including a partially excavated stadium, the forum and several other unnamed but intriguing digs. Covered in snow it was hard to make out too much but again that leaves more for a follow-up trip.
Back to the theatre though, I couldn’t help but be taken back to Theatre History classes past and wowed by seeing a Roman scaenae frons even partially intact. What a great experience.
