Plovdiv is one of the oldest city in Europe. Even Rome and Constantinople are not older than Bulgarian Plovdiv. For the long history the city was conquered by different countries. Greeks, Romans, Slavic, Turkish and other were here. All conquerors left their prints in city history.
Sometimes they try to hide beauty of the city behind the advertising. But they still failed, they need more billboards (:

Historical part of the city is really beautiful. There are also many tourists. Fortunately it’s not that crowdy. Though big tourists groups are loafing here and there.

Part of the Ottoman empire heritage sights is Djumaya Mosque, which was built by Turkish people around 500 years ago. Well, initially it was built in 1364, though Murad the Second completely rebuilt it a hundred years later. So here it is unchanged since that time.

It’s beautiful inside, though, unlikely to most mosques, there is a kind of twilight in the building.

Plovdiv is the city on hills, just like Moscow. It was seven hills in the beginning, though later one of them gone.
Though from the other hills there is a wonderful view on the city.

On one of the hills stays Alyosha. The monument was built during Soviet time in honor of Soviet soldiers who fought here is Nazis. According to Internet it was initiated by locals, not by government. After that there was three attempts to remove the monument in 90s, but locals didn't allow to remove it. In one of the attempt there was organized a 24/7 guarding of the monument
In the end the Supreme Court of Bulgaria resolved that Alyosha is WWII monument and it can be demolished. After that there was no a single attempt to remove it for more than 20 years.

There is a trail after Romans here. The old Roman stadium in Plovdiv saw the Olympic fire in 1980.

Here is a quite big amphitheatre which is used even nowadays for performance. Maybe I should stay and enjoy the event, unfortunately I wasn’t able to reschedule the bus. So maybe another day (:

It was really hot. To spend the entire day under the sun was a bit unusual for me after the chill office with conditioner. The tree shadows were really helpful.

Among narrow streets you can meet some interesting heritage from the Soviet Union time. That car was really cool back in old days.

There are not just mosques and synagogues in Plovdiv, but also there are a lot of Orthodox Christians churches. However most of them are partially closed for reconstruction. They like to do construction work in summer.

This is the view from Sahat hill (Sahat tepe).