Map Sightseeing Culture Restaurants Cafés Nightlife Shopping Hotels Plovdiv №01, Autumn 2017 Contents Arriving & Getting Around 3 Plovdiv Basics 5 ESSENTIAL CITY GUIDES History 6 Feature 7 National Revival Architecture GET THE IN YOUR POCKET APP What’s on 8 In Your Pocket City Essentials is available for Android and iOS from Google Play Store and the App Store. Restaurants 10 Featuring more than 45 cities across Europe, In Your Pocket City Essentials is an invaluable resource telling Cafes 14 you about our favourite places, carefully picked by our local editors. All venues are mapped and work offline Nightlife 16 to help you avoid roaming charges while you enjoy the best our cities have to offer. Download In Your Pocket Sightseeing 18 City Essentials now. Shopping 25 Directory 27 Leisure 28 Hotels 30 Map 32 facebook.com/PlovdivInYourPocket 2017 1 Foreword Bulgaria’s second largest city is home to the country’s most impressive man-made sight: the incredibly well preserved Ancient Тheatre sitting in the saddle between two of the 6 (originally 7) hills the city is famed for and providing a breath- taking view of the city and the Rhodope mountain range. Plovdiv boasts plentiful Roman ruins and an enchanting Old Publisher Town of cobbled streets and timber-framed 19th century Inside & out Ltd. painted houses with overhanging oriel windows. There is no better place for a relaxing, meandering day of sightseeing. Plovdiv is considered one of the oldest cities in Europe, its Published in printed mini guide format once per year. history going back to a Neolithic settlement dated at roughly Print run 10,000 copies 6000 B.C. It became an important Roman city in the early centuries of the new era and was fought over by Bulgaria and Editorial Byzantium for much of the Middle Ages. Plovdiv prospered Editor Paromita Sanatani, (+359) 888 408 647 towards the end of the Ottoman Empire and its rich Bul- [email protected] garian citizens invested in the Orthodox church, Bulgarian- language education and culture and the vernacular ‘National Texts Christine Milner, Paromita Sanatani Revival Architecture’ that we can still admire today. Design, layout and maps Flo Grafix Ltd. Nowadays Plovdiv combines a modern and thriving city cen- Photography Inside & out Ltd. unless otherwise stated tre with the quiet and laid back Old Town, the lively develop- Cover © Depositphotos.com ing arty district, Kapana and the long, wide main shopping street which is completely pedestrianised. In fact Plovdiv now boasts one of the largest pedestrianised areas in Europe. Sales Milena Stefanova, (+359) 888 151 256 COVER STORY [email protected] If you only have time to see one Copyright notice thing in Plovdiv then it has to be Text, maps and photos copyright Inside & out Ltd. All rights re- the Old Town, not least because this is where the city’s best pre- served. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any served Roman monument, the An- form, except brief extracts for the purpose of review, without cient Theatre, lies but also to enjoy written permission from the publisher and copyright owner. the unique atmosphere of cobbled The brand name In Your Pocket is used under license from UAB streets lined with 150-year-old In Your Pocket (Bernardinu 9-4, Vilnius, Lithuania tel. (+370-5) beautifully painted residences. 212 29 76). From small acorns... In 1992 a small team published the fi rst In Your Pocket guide to Vilnius in Lithuania. ONLINE 25 years on In Your Pocket now covers over 100 cities throughout the world in print, online and on mobile reaching over 10 million readers annually. PRINT MOBILE If you’d like to join our group of independent local publishers we’d love to hear from you. Drop us a line at [email protected] 2 Plovdiv In Your Pocket plovdiv.inyourpocket.com Arriving & Getting Around Plovdiv is conveniently located on the Trakia motorway which runs from Sofia to the Black Sea town of Burgas and GETTING AROUND is about 145 km (an hour and half) from Sofia and 254 km The city centre, with its numerous points of interest, is (two and a half hours) from Burgas. fairly spread out and that, combined with the hot climate, Plovdiv has its own airport, mainly used during the winter means you can easily exhaust yourself walking from one season but also with regular flights coming in from the UK to the other. via Ryan Air several times a week. One good way to get around the sights following what is Many of the major operators fly in and out of Sofia, includ- no doubt the most logical route is to take the free walking ing package tours and low cost airlines such as Easyjet and tour that is put on every Wednesday morning and after- Wizzair. There are regular bus and train services between noon by the Tourist Information Centre. Plovdiv and Sofia, bus being the faster option. Luckily there are cafes and bars literally everywhere so you can take frequent breaks. Bear in mind that you are best us- ing the bathroom here, though unlike most Bulgarian cities ARRIVING BY BUS Plovdiv does have some decent public toilets. YUG BUS STATION (AVTOGARA YUG) Next to the railway station, this bus station is used by coaches and buses running to Sofia, Varna, Burgas and to DRIVING IN PLOVDIV the south of Plovdiv. Getting to Plovdiv by car is relatively easy compared to Buses to international destinations (Istanbul, Prague, Bur- getting around by car once you have arrived. Much of the sa) also arrive/depart from here.Qbul. Hristo Botev 47, tel. centre is with restricted car access, pedestrianised areas (+359) 32 626937. and one way streets. Street signs are hard to discover! To be honest if you book accommodation in the city centre (preferably with car park option) you do not really need to ARRIVING BY CAR use your car, as most of the attractions are within walking In all there are three exits for Plovdiv on the Trakia motor- distance of one another. way, the second one (blue route 64) being the most direct If visiting for the day, parking can be something of a prob- if you want to get to the city centre. Past various industrial lem, with most of the city centre designated ‘Blue Zone’, units and car showrooms - you will need to take a left at at a cost of 1 lev per hour. You can usually find a parking bul. Bulgaria and then right at the next roundabout past the Plovdiv Fairgrounds. The speed limit is 50 km/h within the city limits, and 90 km/h on the main roads out of town. Motorway varies be- tween 120-140 km/h depending on road conditions. ARRIVING BY PLANE PLOVDIV AIRPORT Plovdiv airport operates year round low cost carrier Ry- anair flights to London Stansted, Brussels Charleroi, Milan Bergamo and Frankfurt Hahn. With no public transport to and from the city, your only choice is to use the local taxi companies - there are 4, ap- proved by the airport authorities as reputable to wait at the taxi ranks. The fare into town should be around 10 to 15 leva. If you are driving, the car parking fee is apply 2 leva per hour with only the first 15 mins free of charge. Reason- able long term rates - deatils here. A tourist info centre inside the terminal provides free maps, leaflets and tourist guidesQKrumovo, tel. (+359) 32 601 113, www.plovdivairport.com. ARRIVING BY TRAIN CENTRAL STATION (TSENTRALNA GARA) About 1km from the southernmost point of the city cen- tre, the Central Station is best reached by bus or taxi.Qbul. Hristo Botev 46. facebook.com/PlovdivInYourPocket 2017 3 Arriving & Getting Around attendant selling tickets (the date and time need crossing off) but if not you can send a text message containing your PUBLIC TRANSPORT car registration number by mobile phone (if you have a lo- Plovdiv city buses are mostly reliable and the fleet is quite cal account). One text message pays for 1 hour of parking. new. The ride costs 1 lev which you pay to the conductor on If you fail to pay your car will first be clamped and if you board. Don’t be alarmed if they tear your ticket in two, this is don’t respond to that it will eventually be towed away. If some sort of validation. From the central train station, take clamped you should find a note on your windscreen with bus № 20 or 26 to the city centre and the Old Town, or get off the number to call. after the tunnel to enter the Kapana district. There are also several private car parks such as the one in front of the Trimontium Hotel or the edges of the Old Town, which charge 2 leva for each started hour, but generally REGIONAL BUS SERVICES they are safe and ideally located. Plovdiv is ideally located for trips to many of the country’s most beautiful attractions such as the Bachkovo Monastery, Pamporovo ski resort, Assenova krepost (a medieval fortress near Assenovgrad) and much more. There are regular bus services but these are really only recommended if you are travelling on a very tight budget. TAXIS Taxis are very inexpensive and offer an excellent alternative to moving around the city by car. Taxis in Bulgaria are all painted bright yellow and are usually branded to a particular company. They charge by the kilome- tre, with an initial fee of anywhere up to 1 lev. Expect to pay around 50-70 stotinki daytime and slightly higher at night.