The Compelling Roman Ruins of Plovdiv, Bulgaria



The ancient Roman Empire spread not just throughout much of what is today western Europe, but east, as well, including present day Romania and the Balkans (including Bulgaria). In 188 BCE the Romans invaded the region of Thrace (covering southeastern Bulgaria, northeastern Greece, and the European part of Turkey), finally conquered it in 46 CE and ruling until the…

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Travel usually involves a lot of planning and packing and booking and backtracking. At age 70, though, there are many new ways to travel. For one thing, there is time travel, which is what I call revisiting a place that I visited long ago, just to see all the ch-ch-ch-changes, maybe even recognize somebody from the old days. I’d done this before and did it again during the pandemic, when my usual Asian haunts were locked down tighter than a you-fill-in-the-blank and so I reverted to…

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