The Ham Nomads

9 May 2015. <BG> Plovdiv —

Part of the road into Plovdiv

Plovdiv residential!

Another day of driving eastwards towards the Black Sea — except that we decided to drop in to the town of Plovdiv (Пловдив). This large city has a 6,000 year history, and its old town (старият град) is well worth the visit.

But first, we wanted to drop in to a Lidl store to buy some bread for lunch — have we told you that Lidl has probably the best baguettes of any large store? While we were there, we noticed a circus tent set up next door, and a van in the carpark which had the times of the performances pasted up inside the back window — and the last performance in Plovdiv was tonight at 5pm. We haven't been to the circus for zonks, so why not?

The house of Dimiter Georgiary, built 1846-1848

So we gravitated towards the old city — found a roadside park within easy walking distance, and walked in. Plovdiv — Saturday afternoon — what's to do? Get married! At the St. Constantine and Elena Church (Църква "Свети Константин и Елена"), in the middle of the old streets, there was a virtual assembly line of weddings. We saw at last five wedding parties arriving for the church in the hour we were in the vicinity. The sound of the singing from the church was delightful, and the incense was permeating the area — and the wedding cars were creating a virtual traffic jam! But fun!

In the old streets, there were stalls selling souvenirs and local wares, and tour groups were being walked through. There were buskers, one of whom had no idea of tuning (either his guitar or his voice!), but a couple old troupers were hammering out a good selection of local Bulgarian songs as well as songs that we knew.

It was getting towards 5pm, so we made our way back to Lidl and the Arlekino Circus (Цирк Арлекно). We got ringside seats, and joined the family groups inside — the circus is, after all, a kids' thing! Soon the show got under way, and it was most entertaining,

 

This is a family circus, and during the show (while he was standing near the entrance taking photos), Warren got into conversation with the circus owner/patriarch. He told Warren that 'Miss Tiffany', who did much of the ring announcing, an escape act, a musical bell-ringing act, and an act with doves, has another life as a pianist — here are a couple of links to YouTube clips of her playing Mendelssohn and Paganini, a year ago at age 12! He himself has been in Australia and New Zealand for four years, working with the 'Stardust Circus'.

Here are a couple more YouTube links, to The Circus Arlekino Knives Show, and an interview (in Bulgarian) with the Head Animal Trainer (Tiffany's mother).

A sweet little magic act by their youngest performer

The acts are varied, and at interval all the kids were allowed to take a lap of the ring on the back of the little pony — being carefully held in place all the way round!

One of the other girl performers does a good act with hula hoops — controlling up to 20 at one time — and dances with flaming torches.

Another mobile road block coming our way!

But all good things have to come to an end and after two hours we made our way out and back onto the road, where we just happened on a wide unmarked parking area well off the road, where we stopped for the night.

Distance driven — today, 147 miles ( 236 km ); to date, 19,703 miles ( 31,710 km )