Banya Plovdiv

Banya Plovdiv draws its name from the ancient thermal tradition that has flourished in the villages of the Plovdiv Province since the Thracian period, when the mineral springs of the region attracted settlement in one of the world's oldest continuously inhabited landscapes — the surrounding Plovdiv is estimated to have been continuously inhabited for over 6,000 years, making it one of Europe's oldest cities, known successively as Eumolpia, Philippopolis, Pulpudeva, and finally Plovdiv through an extraordinary continuity of urban life from the Bronze Age to the present. The oligomineral springs of the Banya village area, flowing through the volcanic and sedimentary geology of the Plovdiv Province foothills, have served therapeutic purposes throughout this long history, recognized by Greek, Roman, Byzantine, Bulgarian, and Ottoman inhabitants who each left traces of their spa culture in the surrounding landscape. Today the mineral waters continue this ancient therapeutic tradition, offering oligomineral bathing in a landscape layered with the deepest human history in the entire Balkans.