Friday, May 11, 2018

TripAdvisor offers to Plovdiv and Denpasar? Where are they? Why go there?

Problem
Tripadvisor keeps sending me offers of cheap flights from London to places I don't know. However often I do those quizzes on Duolingo on the capitals of Europe, up comes another offer. By the time I get around to checking the country, two days later, the offer will be gone. Anyway, let's check out today's offers. If they sent me a feedback form, I would tell them to add the country.

Answers
Plovdiv - second city of Bulgaria.
BULGARIA  - WELCOMING!




Here's the flag, horizontal stripes of white, green and red.

On the map of Europe, it is East of Italy, beyond Greece, bordering the Black Sea, south of Russia.



Plovdiv - BULGARIA
Plovdiv is the second largest city. Bulgaria is on my list. I like to add a new country. I am working on learning the Cyrillic alphabet through Duolingo.

You can see from the map of Europe that Bulgaria is on the inland sea so it has beaches.





The Ethnographic Museum, Plovdiv, Bulgaria. 


The Synagogue, Plovdiv, Bulgaria.

PLOVDIV
1 Greek Names
Originally Philip's town, in Greek Philippolis (Philip - polis meaning city, as in the modern English words politics and political - matters affecting the governing of the entire city). Incidentally, the name Philip comes from Philos, as in Philadelphia, meaning love, and lipos meaning horse. A lover of horses would have been a wealthy nobleman. When you look at the map and see Greece is close by, and so is Macedonia, the invasion by Philip of Macedonia is not so surprising. Plovdiv is in the south west of the country, not terribly near those beaches on the East coast, more of a cultural trip unless you have time for a two-centre trip or some travelling.

Meanwhile, what's to see nowadays in Plovdiv?

2 Roman Ruins
After the Greeks came to Bulgaria alon came the Romans and the city has major Roman remains to see.
 Wiki says: preserved ruins such as the ancient 
Plovdiv Roman theatre
a Roman odeon
Roman aqueduct
the Plovdiv Roman Stadium.

3 Russian Alphabet
The Russians up north brought the Cyrillic alphabet, which two priestly brothers, one called Cyril, created using letters from the Hebrew and Greek alphabets. From the Bulgarian point of view, creating a script using the alphabet from nearby neighbour Greece seemed a handy, obvious idea, good for travelling or if you already spoke the neighbouring language.

Catch up on the Cyrillic alphabet using Duolingo, and you can use it again later if you ever go to Russia, as well as reading captions on monuments and railway stations in photos of Bulgaria and Russia.

4 Bulgarian Balkan Backdrop
The city is surrounded by seven hills. Plovdiv in Bulgaria is called The City of Seven Hills. You can see that in photos.

5 Modern

For Denpasar in Bali see next post.

These offers have probably gone already. But next time around, I'll be in the know and ready to click on the link.

I am adding a top one, three, five, seven or ten sights or types of sights to see in each country:

Useful Websites:
GENERAL TOURISM
http://tripadvisor.com.sg

BULGARIA
http://bulgariantouristboard.com

BALI, INDONESIA (See next post.)
http://balitourismboard.or.id

Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer.

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