In the center of town we found the city’s main plaza, a large one flanked by majestic Medici era architecture. But the city goes back much further, to the Etruscans circa 800 BCE. Excavations in the 1980’s and 90’s proved its Etruscan origins, around the 5th century BCE. The city is close to the coast and was once a maritime power. It is split by the Arno River, which nearly topped it’s tall banks here and in Firenze (Florence) just a few weeks ago from the mountain rains to the east. The historical center would have been disastrously flooded.
Pisa was at its height from the 11th century until the 17th as one of the major maritime republics of Italy. The city’s port still provides significant employment as does tourism and the major universities and schools. The University of Pisa dates to the 12th century. The Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa (high school teacher training), founded by Napoleon in 1810, is in the main plaza.
At night the old town streets are abuzz. It seems like most of the city’s 35,000 students are talking at the same time, clustered around bars drinking beer, wine and Aperol. It’s late March so the weather is more encouraging, with temps in the 10-20c (50-68f). The churches are still quite cold and damp.
The lively night life in il Borgo, the historical center of Pisa
It appears that Pisans seem to have a distinct preference for spaghetti, as opposed to say linguine or orecchiette in Puglia, as each of the restaurants we visited served only spaghetti (aside from lasagna) with the sauces on offer. I found a rice pie in one of the bakeries. I was hoping to try “cecina,” a flatbread made with garbanzo bean flour.
Statue to Cosomo Medici
The statue to Cosomo Medici was commissioned by Grand Duke Ferdinando I in 1596. Pietro Francavilla sculpted the piece in the elegant Late Mannerist style. The building behind is the Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa, with only 600 students enrolled. It’s primary purpose is the training of high school teachers. The decor is painted onto what I believe is concrete or something similar.
Chiesa di Santa Maria della Spina. The wall on the left is the river’s retaining wall.
Chiesa di Santa Maria della Spina is a lovely and small Gothic church on the southern bank of the Arno. The Gualandi family built it in the 1200s, naming it Santa Maria di Pontenovo. It was moved to its current location to better protect it from flood waters. “Della Spina” refers to a thorn from the crown of thorns, no longer in the church. It is in the Chiesa di Santa Chiara on Via Roma. Pontenuovo collapsed in the 15th c, never rebuilt. It was closed when we were there. Too bad. There is a famous Gothic sculpture Madonna of the Rose by the Pisano brothers.
Surely there is no king with a more beautiful castle or palace and with so many gilded rooms (…) …how magnificent and sumptuous is this palace. — 15th-century German diary (British Museum)
Olite is a town of 4,000 in the Spanish Province of Navarre. The Royal Palace located there is a beautiful example of French castle design. French, you say? Indeed. King Charles III built the Royal Palace in the 15th century, taking builders with him on a tour of French castles before starting the project. The result is an extravagant Gothic castle. I counted four slate covered pointed roofs typical of French castles. The towers, galleries, gardens and patios were luxuriously decorated, but little remains of the furnishings. Nonetheless it is a joy to imagine what it was like back then, until your legs had climbed the 6 or more tightly circular staircase stories up from ground level. A lovely view of the surrounding countryside makes it worthwhile.
The castle became a residence of Henri of Navarre (1553-1610), who ruled as Henri IV of France from 1589-1610 and King of Navarre (as Henry III) from 1572. He was the first King of France from the House of Bourbon, a branch of the Capetians. The Capetians ruled from the late 10th century until 1792. He was Protestant, and is famous for saying “Paris is worth a mass” to become King of France. The current King of Spain is a Bourbon, from which comes the name for the famous Kentucky distillate.
The castle was made a National Monument in 1925.
After the invasion of Navarre in 1512 the palace was only used as an occasional residence by the Viceroys. It was set afire during the Spanish War of Independence in 1813 to stop Napoleon’s troops from occupying it.
There is a second castle on the site, called the Old Palace. It is much smaller and is now a Parador, a government-owned chain of luxury hotels located in buildings of architectural and historic importance but no longer in official use. The Old Palace dates to the 13th century. Only the outer walls and towers remain. It is now under renovation.
“Apparently, it (the Old Palace) held originally a more military purpose and only served as temporary residence for Theobald II in the last year of his life and his brother-cum-successor Henry I during his short reign (1270 – 1274) before the Gothic styled structure came to house the Naverrese Court late in the century.” https://breakingthruhistory.wordpress.com/2024/07/17/the-royal-palace-of-olite-navarre-spain/. Construction of its successor, the Royal Palace, began in 1406 according to other sources.
The Old Palace (Palacio Viejo) sits atop an ancient Roman fortification. It was constructed in the reign of Sancho VII of Navarre ‘the Strong’ (r. 1194 – 1234). It was enlarged by his successors Theobald I (r. 1234 – 1253) and Theobald II (r. 1253 – 1270).
A few notes on the cuisine
Each region of Spain has its own take on the cuisine. The one restaurant in which we dined featured a grilled trout with a full slice of Serrano type ham inside. This is probably the only place in the world that would think to add pork to fish. It was good but not outstanding. Another dish was superb – Alubias pochas con chorizo. Alubias are white beans, but in the local dialect they are called ‘pochas.’ It had a deep, rich flavor from the bits of chorizo and the stock. The Spanish are known for bean dishes and this was a great example. In the evening we went out for tapas and a beverage. I tried some sort of puff pastry with various fillings, sweet or savory, tasty and moist, going well with the local wine. I had the same pastry for breakfast the next morning. And there is, among other offerings, something called a Torta Ttxantxigorri, made with “chicharrones de cerdo,” pig skin, sugar and cinnamon.
Olite is not far from Teruel, known for its dry cured hams, commonly referred to as Serrano ham. It is in the same family as the Italian prosciutto crudo, literally raw ham to distinguish it from prosciutto cotto, cooked ham, and the French jambon cru, also literally raw ham but also dry cured. The best known Italian version is Parma ham, made in, you guessed it, Parma, the same area that brings us parmigiano the cheese and things like eggplant parmesan (melanzane parmigiano). The Spanish jamon is generally cured for longer periods than others, up to 18 months.
We drove south to visit a monastary on the way back to Valencia. There was a black and white hooded monk standing at the door of the Monasterio de Santa Maria Real de la Oliva as we drove up. He was gone a moment later. For a moment I thought I was having a Padre Pio moment. Il Padre was known for being in two places at once, or rather for people thinking so. However this monk had merely gone inside, awaiting us at the counter. He was happy to chat, in Spanish, English, French, Portuguese and the mysterious Basque. And some African language, as he’d been assigned to some post in Angola at one time. At age 95 and going strong. he was just one of about nine Cistercian monks in the monastery that once probably held over a hundred. The ones that remained were all approaching the century mark, except for the part time visiting monks. The cells once reserved for prayer are now available for those wishing a quiet getaway.
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The peaceful cloisters of the Monasterio.
The monastery’s large church is part Romanesque and part Gothic, reflecting its early origins and the influence of French architecture even then. You can see the Gothic design in the tracery of the cloisters.
We stopped back in the shop to buy some wine from the friendly old monk, and while there considered some of the cheese. We passed on the latter. A few days later tried the wine. It’s a bit thin on the viscosity as well as nose and tongue, but drinkable enough, just not worth the price given how much good wine you can get here for three or four euros.
With the renewal of the €10 unlimited regional travel pass we’re again visiting the smaller towns near Valencia. Puig (officially El Puig de Santa Maria) is just 14k and less than 30 minutes away. The train wasn’t crowded on the way there, though bursting at the seams on the way back as people were joining the King’s Day festivities in Valencia.
Walking to the center of Puig from the metro stop we passed a field of recently harvested persimmons, those left unharvested sitting bright orange in the sun to tempt the passers-by. In town’s center children lined up for face painting, balloon making and such, part of the festivities associated with King’s Day, January 6, when the “kings” appeared with gifts for the newborn Jesus. The actual ranks, names, origins, appearances, and exact number are unmentioned, all these coming later on as traditions and not as history. The Kings story is only found in the Gospel According to “Mathew” (we don’t know who actually wrote any of the Gospels). The bakeries all around Spain are undeterred by any of this, happily selling round King cakes for the January 6 event, much like the ones sold in New Orleans, in case you’ve ever had one there.
Entry to the Monastery is a mere €4, which includes the obligatory guided tour. They throw in the puffingly steep climb to the museum entry. Our Spanish only guide spoke quickly, her voice often reverberating heavily off the stone and plaster walls. You have to stand in front of her to have much hope of understanding. She turns to explain the various features of the many rooms so you have to keep up. I stopped trying to do so after a while, thinking she’d found my tracking her to be odd.
She begin In 1237 when Jaume I (Jaime in Spanish, James in English) ordered the construction of a church on a hill in el Puig. A priest named Peter Nolasco (Peter is the Valenciano, Pedro the Spanish) found a Byzantine icon of what came to be called Nuestra Señora de los Ángeles, by no means the only image carrying this name. Jaume already had a castle on a nearby and taller hill – you can explore the ruins easily. The work on the church was finished in 1240 and turned over to the Ordo Beatae Mariae de Mercede Redemptionis Captivorum, the Mercedarians, an order established in 1218 by the very same priest in Barcelona. Makes me wonder how he “found” this icon.
Pilgrims flocked to the site to see Nuestra Señora, believing the discovery to have been miraculous. To better handle the crowds workers began to build the present Gothic church in 1300. In 1588 they built the massive monastery in which there are cloisters, the Salón Real, the Salon Gotico of Jaume I, and the Salón of Ceramics. The architect was one Antón Dexado de la Cossa.
Video on the Monastery’s official website
Our video of the visit
The monastery they built has a fortress-like rectangular stone exterior. It looks to be some six stories high with four imposing towers. The interior is richly appointed everywhere you look. You’d think that given its size they would have run out of decor but in those days gold was flowing into Spain from the “New” World (not new at all to the inhabitants, of course) and there were lots of artisans. The building has served many purposes, one of them was for printing, and there is a museum dedicated to this.
There are two cloisters. In one you see the Gothic Hall and the Printing Museum. There are numerous paintings by José Vergara (1726-1799). In the second cloister there are many paintings as well, and the Salón Real (Royal Hall), the Hall of the Order of the Knights of el Puig along with the Gothic church. The expertly painted dome is behind the main chapel. The materials and workmanship everywhere are stupendous. See https://www.spain.info/en/places-of-interest/royal-monastery-puig-santa-maria
From El Puig’s castle Jaime I launched his assault on Valencia, then held by the Moors, the Arabic conquerors who invaded Spain in 711 CE. The Moors were preparing a surprise attack on the castle in Puig. Legend has it that Jaime was awoken by the beating wings of a bat, allowing him to thwart the enemy. He added the bat with open wings to the coat of arms of Valencia, where it remains to this day. See https://valencia-unravelled.com/history/a-story-of-bats-and-dragons/
Below the monastery there is a bomb shelter, built during the Spanish Civil War. On the hill with the castle there are defensive trenches dug by the Republicans during that period.
Some of the art I produced this past year. Most of the watercolors were done aboard Viking. There is limited space and I have to put everything away each time so larger paintings are difficult to mange. It’s perfect for watercolors though!
It was a wonderful year for cruising once the rains let up around June 1. Before that it was rather dreary and the Maas (Meuse in French) was running quite fast as we headed against the current on our way south.
Christmas eve dinner here in Rome: I prepared a multiple course meal. Well it was mostly me, as the spousal unit managed to sneak in some very non-Italian smoked herring and salmon. You can get both of these in the stores here these days, but that is no excuse, IMHO.
In Italy the meal is divided into courses: antipasto (before the pasta), Primo piato (first plate, meaning pasta) and Secondo, meaning seafood and meats, Contorni (vegetables) and the Dolci (desserts) and then at the end an espresso (and NOT a cappuccino, let alone one WITH the meal). For primo I made stuffed mushrooms and ricotta fritters (both family recipes), smoked salmon with grilled veg as well as polpette marino (disliked by all but one), these last two begrudgingly admitted to this course in order to humor the unit, and artichokes.
Wine bottles in a bar in Rome
Primos: I made pasta with meatballs and gnochhi in a pistachio pesto sauce. Spaghetti and meatballs served together is an Italian-American thing, as “polpetti” is a meat item and therefore comes as a secondo. This was another compromise, in an effort to serve at least something that the younger non-Italians with us would identify as Italian and in which they might find comfort. “Enough with the surprises, already!” they seemed to be saying, though maybe I was jumping the gun, as to my great delight these are not picky eaters.
Pasta con cozze (mussels) served the next day with the leftover mussels and their broth
Shrimp grilled in butter and lots of garlic, and steamed mussels came next. By this time everyone was full so there were left over shrimp and mussels, and we never even got to the contorni, the vegetable side dish, in one restaurant laughingly translated as “contours.” I’d made cicoria sauteed with garlic, olives and olive oil. We skipped to the dolci, Panettone as well as Vin Santo. Vin Santo, a sweet wine, is a Rome tradition. You dip the crunchy Tozzeti alle Mandorle and chomp away. Tozzeti are called ‘biscotti’ in the US, but ‘biscotti’ is simply the Italian word for ‘biscuit’ or, better yet, ‘cookie.’ There are numerous variations of tozzeti as well as biscotti in general, but mostly just one in the US if you can find them there at all.
White and red wine accompanied the meal. The white in this photo is from the nearby Colli Albani. It is not good enough for a special meal so we opened a better one. The one in the photo and its variations are popular in Rome, sold in bottles or delivered by truck and then pumped via hose into the basement casks of the “enotecas” (wine shops). The shops in turn deliver via spigot to customers who bring their own bottles. They charge about $2.50 a liter. It is often served as the ‘vino della casa’ at restaurants for 6-10 euros a liter (a bottle is .75 liters)
White wine from nearby Frascati
Christmas Day: Lunch with friends, people we have known since our sojourn of 1999-2000. There was prosciutto crudo and Russian salad for antipasto. Prosciutto is the Italian word for ham. It can either be cotto (cooked, that is, regular ham) or crudo, literally ‘raw,’ but actually it is salt cured for long term conservation without refrigeration. In the US people think that ‘prosciutto’ just refers to the crudo version. Russian salad, just their family tradition and not at all common, is diced potatoes, carrots, peas, and hard boiled eggs. The eggs in this case were, thankfully, sliced and laid on top, as I dislike them. A lasagna and then an Italian version of meatloaf came next. It was a fine meal, with long periods of conversation beforehand and between each course as well.
Pannetones are a fruit cake, though nowadays there are many variations.
A few days later we went to another friend’s house for coffee. She served up some really good and not too sweet cookies she made using family recipes, as well as turron, marzipan and the ubiquitous panettone. I’d brought a panettone with me, as we had too many even after taking one to the Christmas eve dinner. I was hoping to get rid of it. We’d already had one and ‘basta!’ one was enough. I thought I was out of luck but then our friend announced she would like to take us to see her daughter. I was hoping for another opportunity. Nope. She had the rest of the panettone in tow. Mine remained hidden in my backpack.
Everyone seems to try to pan off their panettones here. I am sure that when we lived here in December of 1999 we brought panettones to friends’ houses that were the very ones they brought to ours.
Some other tidbits about eating in Italy
Bread is a big deal in Italy. You can get it in grocery stores and panificio, a bread shop. Pastries are sold in a pasticceria. Bread and pastries are not normally sold in the same shop. Whether you get bread in a grocery store (supermercato) or a panificio, you chose the bread you want from the clerk, who weighs it and applies a price sticker to the bag.
You will need a good bread knife as few places have a slicer and the breads have mighty fine crusty crusts. In addition these breads are not made with chemicals so they dry out and harden quickly, so it is best not to slice them in advance, although these days you can freeze them and they will be just fine for weeks.
Bread counter in a Todis, a very popular discount grocer in Rome
Want some pizza on the run? Get slices at any of the many small shops. You order by size, they weigh and heat it up for you- they seem to love to weigh food here. You can also get veggies in some places. A tavola calda (“hot table”) has pizza (by the weight of course!) and much more, such as roasted chicken, porchetta (pork stuffed with garlic and herbs) and contorni (also by the weight). Beer, wine and soft drinks are served from a refrigerated case (not weighed, thanks goodness). These places have plenty of seating, unlike most by the slice places, and are much less expensive than a restaurant. You order at the counter and pay then and there.
Pizza a taglio (by the weight), cicoria (bitter green loved by the Italians), polpette (meatballs). Not fancy but good!
Rome is the seat of the approximately 1.2 billion Roman Catholics. Strictly speaking it’s the Vatican City State that occupies this position, but as it is surrounded by the city of Rome, it is understandable why so many meld the two.
The Pope was the head of the Papal States, comprising roughly the center third of Italy, from 756 to 1870. By 1860 most of the Papal States had been conquered by what had become known as the Kingdom of Italy in an effort termed Il Risorgimiento. At that point the Pope only controlled Lazio, the province in which Rome is located, but he lost that in 1870. He then governed only the Vatican City. This arrangement was formalized by the 1929 accord negotiated with Fascist Italy under the pugnacious and blustering Mussolini.
What remains of the Papal power is largely religious. How strong is the Pope’s religious holds over the Italian people? This is not an easy question to answer as there are multiple polls providing varying results. I estimate that roughly 75 percent of Italians are nominally Roman Catholic (RCC), with about half of them observant (attending church on a regular basis), about 10% are atheist or agnostic, 4% are non-Catholic Christians including more than 100,000 Jehovah’s Witnesses and about 50,000 Mormons, 3.5 percent Muslim, with 2 percent who are followers of other religions, including Buddhists, Jews (there are about 40,000), Hindus, Sikhs, etc.
The Pope’s celebrity gives the appearance of importance greater than his actual influence justifies, given half of the country’s Roman Catholics do not regularly participate in Church activities, such as service attendance, despite the threat of eternal damnation for failing to do so. This same group, however, when asked, largely express a belief in the Christian deity. For more information check out Religion in Italy and Pew.
Il Papa is about the conduct a church service at St Peter’s, December 24, 2024.
Even in Rome churches are closed for lack of attendance, allowing the Church to better manage its resources. This is in spite of the fact that aside from the four large churches in Rome, the rest of the churches in Italy are maintained by the Italian government. In some places elsewhere in Europe, the buildings are converted to secular use such as art museums or turned into paid visits.
Church maintenance is not the only form of governmental assistance. Without his other assistance the Church would probably collapse. In Italy by law 0.8% of every taxpayer’s annual payment is devoted either to an organized religions which performs social services, or to a state-funded social assistance program. The system is called the otto per mille, meaning eight for every thousand. Over €1 billion a year flows into church coffers from this source. The RCC is not alone: recipients include “…the Waldensian Church, the Assemblies of God, the Seventh Day Adventists, the Union of Italian Jewish Communities, the Lutherans, the Baptists, the Greek Orthodox, along with the Italian Buddhist Union and the Italian Hindu Union.” Tax payers choose the recipients. The Catholic Church remains the most popular choice in 2024, selected by about 70 percent of those who express a preference. The government generally finishes a distant second, followed by other religious groups. See Crux Without this system, the Church would be reliant on Sunday donations, sales of paraphernalia and its businesses.
The Church owns businesses? Indeed, it does. There are Church properties such as private clinics, hotels, bed and breakfast accommodation and guest houses. The income was not taxed provided part of it was occupied by priests or nuns, or had a chapel or prayer room. This created an easy tax loophole. Then the EU took Italy to court. In March of 2023 the Court ordered the Italian government to collect taxes on Church revenue. The tax obligation mounts into the millions. The matter is ongoing but could result in a significant hit on Church coffers. See Reuters
Rome is just a 2 hour flight from Valencia so even Ryan Air’s uncomfortable seats can be manageable. We plunked our two carry-ons in the overheads and sat with a sizable and friendly Bulgarian fellow living in Valencia somehow wedged between us. There went the manageability. He’s with his wife and children, with them to the rear of the plane although at first I thought they were hiding in the jacket he was wearing. They were heading for a short visit to the Eternal City.
We chose this holiday period to visit Rome as it’s a Jubilee year. Jubilees are always preceded by projects that hope to improve Rome’s infrastructure as well maintaining churches, statues and other works of art. It starts with the opening of “holy doors.”
A Jubilee is celebrated by the Roman Catholic Church every 25 years. For the faithful it has spiritual significance, being “A Holy Year of the forgiveness of sin, conversion and joyful celebration.” Catholic Life. In days gone by this pilgrimage came with a promised reduction in the time spent in purgatory but nowadays it is wrapped in aspirational themes.
Wondering, as I was, where the “jubilee” came from? In the Hebrew Bible, aka the Old Testament, it is a year of “emancipation and restoration.” Every 50 years you were to emancipate enslaved Hebrews, restore lands to their former owners, and not cultivate the land. Sounds like a pretty rough year unless you were an an enslaved Hebrew or had lost your land somehow, aside from the travails of the then current owner.
The first of the Roman Catholic Church jubilees occurred in 1300. At first it was celebrated every 100 years, later dropped to 50 and then 25 years, where it remains. But wait! There were ‘special jubilee years in 1983, the 1,950th anniversary of the death of Jesus, and 2015, the 50th anniversary of the end of the Second Vatican Council. There will be another in 2033, 2000 years after the death of Jesus. Nothing like a jubilee to cheer you up, I guess.
This Jubilee has various themes including 1) the world of communication (24 January) , 2) Armed Forces (8 February), 3) artists (16 February), Jubilee of Deacons (21 February), 4) Volunteering (8 March), 5) those who are ill (5 April), 6) adolescents (25 April), 7) People with disabilities (28 April), 8) workers (1 May), 9) Children (24 May), 10) Families, grandparents and elderly people (30 May), 11) sports (14 June), 12) young people (28 July), 9) migrants (5 October), 13) the poor (16 November). The jubilee is a way of highlighting causes deemed worthy of attention.
Planners anticipate that some 35 million plan to make the pilgrimage in 2026, with a million or so choosing this Christmas period. The Jubilee officially started on December 24, 2024 with the opening of the so called “Holy Doors” at St. Peter’s Basilica, and ending on January 6, 2026. There are ‘holy doors’ at all the Vatican churches in Rome and elsewhere. My favorite is the huge door at San Giovane in Laterano, being that taken from the Roman senate at the forum, which is just a short distance away.
Above: Pope Francis at St. Peter’s “Holy Door” on 12/24. He’s nearly 90 and not in the best of health.
There a number of events of note during the Jubilee. See Program Expect Concerts and exhibitions galore (the Vatican’s ‘concerts’ link is not working as of this writing).
There are numerous infrastructure projects in Rome, with a total of 115 planned. The total cost of the projects is estimated at €1.2 trillion, about $1.5 trillion USD. The city expects to recoup a significant portion of the expenditures from the additional anticipated tourist taxes. Among the projects:
New tunnel at St Peter’s (in the background)
An €85 million infrastructure project created a new tunnel along with the pedestrianization of Piazza Pia. It now links Castel S. Angelo to Via della Conciliazione and St Peter’s Square. Trevi Fountain was just reopened to view, sparkling clean and with crowd controls limiting visitors to 400 at a time, according to a local in the know. The main Tram stop for the Vatican, Line 19, now has been cleaned up and beautified with stone pavements. San Giovanni in Laterano is currently enclosed by fencing on the front side. It is due to open on December 28, along with a host of others before year’s end, Mayor Gualtieri running about with sharpened scissors as a host of other projects come to conclusion.
About 350,000 people live in Plovdiv making it the second largest city in Bulgaria. It was founded on the Marista River. People support themselves here on tobacco production, food processing, textiles and brewing, as well as high tech, festivals and tourism. There are six universities in this small city. It is known for its Roman era theater, still in use, and centrally located. There are old Orthodox-style churches, mosques, and a large Jewish temple. It was the European Capital of Culture in 1999 and 2019, no small honor.
We came in a van capable of seating 20, but there were fewer on this typical cold but sunny day. They waited for us on a side street near the Cathedral. We were accompanied by a guide. I’ll call him Boris. A big friendly guy, he speaks excellent, American accented English, the country’s second language, so this capability is pretty common.
Along the way Boris talked about life in the Soviet era. He told the story of his father wanting a car. He was able to accumulate the required 50% down payment. Then he waited. And waited. And waited for eleven years for the notification! When it finally arrived off he went to the official, and one and only, car dealership in the country. He’d ordered a red car. We have no red cars, they said, but here’s a green one. He could not refuse delivery without having to start the waiting period from zero. This was not unusual, our guide said. Generally consumer goods were hard to come by and the only imports allowed were from bloc countries. East German products were prized, though not by anyone in the West.
On the plus side, you could count on a job and if none were available, an income nonetheless. There are still people who prefer the communist era for its safety net. Also, while there were no real elections, government was stable. Maybe a few heads would roll now and again, but the government never fell. Nowadays the government is unstable. There are plenty of real elections, in fact, but there have been seven of them since 2021.
Once in town we walked up one of the city’s seven hills to take a look at some of the interesting architecture from the Ottoman period, something you do not find in the young (1887) city of Sofia. A mansion we passed was built by a well to do merchant. He was forced to change his name to a Turkish one and convert to Islam in order to do business.
Plovdiv merchant’s house, closed to visitors on Mondays, so this was as close as we got
Cobbled streets in the old town
Sveta Marina Church, barely recognizable as a church
Under the Ottomans, Christian churches were allowed, but they were not permitted to look like a church but rather but to blend in with the Ottoman architecture. Mosques were subject to no such restriction. Non-Muslims paid higher taxes. These sorts of policies made the Ottomans very unpopular.
We walked to the well preserved Roman era theater in the old center. As was normal for the Romans, the theater was carved out of the hillside, so seating followed the hill’s climb. No need to erect grandstands.
Roman theater with views of the Balkan Mountains
Nearby is the Circo Massimo, an oval race track, located beneath the area’s main drag. They have excavated only a small portion of the track, a main entrance. It was built at ground level and buried over time.
Circo Massimo, Roman era race track
There are numerous eateries in the area, so this is where Boris dropped us off at lunch time. We saw lots of kabob shops, a contribution of the Turks, and places selling a variety of freshly baked doughy goodies like the one below. You can eat cheaply and well but you have to sit outside. Crossing back over the Circo Massimo you can find plenty or restaurants with indoor as well as outdoor seating, with plenty of people preferring the outdoors even at daytime temperatures around 5c/40f. The one we chose had a dozen salad offerings, which Bulgarians love, along with a variety of meat dishes. Lunch for two cost us around $20, payable with credit cards, almost universally accepted in the country.
Plenty to keep you going, with the usual hot dog taste
