Plovdiv, Bulgaria

I'm a geography nerd and watch a lot of YouTube travel videos so I had Plovdiv on the itinerary from day one, but you'd be forgiven if you haven't heard of Plovdiv. It's Bulgaria's second city and it is even older than Sofia. This is the oldest city in Europe, people have been living here for at least eight thousand years.

There is a 50,000-seat Circus Maximus underneath the main pedestrianised shopping street, just one fraction of the seats have been unearthed. It's right in the middle of the street with the majority underneath stores and restaurants. As I sat in one of the seats I wondered what had been witnessed from this very seat.

The old town is a well-preserved collection of Ottoman-era houses still lived in today. Our hotel was one of these buildings, and our host told us about the interior painting that took two months to complete.

I've had the good fortune in recent years in picking great small hotels. I base it on good reviews, location, breakfast, and especially if several reviews single out one exemplary person. (This is how I found the ultimate host, Levs in Riga last year.) This hotel was no different, our host Dmitri was so enthusiastic to see us and asked if we'd come from Sofia. Yes, I said, he immediately replied "Plovdiv better". He was so knowledgeable and proud of his city that we decided to skip the walking tour we were going to do as there was no way the guide would have lived up to Dmitri. He also went out of his way to make sure Natasha had a good breakfast before we left this morning for another adventure.