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Hidden gem3rd – 6th c. ADTicketed

Eirene Residence

Domus Eirene, Ейрене

site · Plovdiv Province, Bulgaria

What it is
The Eirene Residence is a Roman town house of the 3rd century in Philippopolis, shown with 160 m² of its mosaic floors in the archaeological underpass beneath Tsar Boris III Boulevard in central Plovdiv (en.wikipedia; bg.wikipedia).
What you’ll see
The house was a peristyle house, its living rooms grouped round a courtyard with columns, the service rooms to the south, and a separate wing for the servants with its own door to the street. It filled a whole city block.
Worth the trip?
Yes, if you like mosaics. The house is shown indoors, below street level, so it is a museum visit rather than a ruin, and it is a few minutes' walk from the Roman theatre.
Getting there & cost
The house is in the archaeological underpass of Tsar Boris III Boulevard, part of the Trakart cultural centre (bg.wikipedia), about 190 m from the Roman theatre.Ticketed · €3.58 for adults and €1.53 for students and visitors over 65 (the operator's single-site ticket) · checked 2 October 2026Hours, tickets and parking
A large expanse of Roman floor mosaic in an indoor hall, with circular and geometric patterns in red, ochre and grey, an octagonal marble basin standing on it, low ruined walls, and display cases along the walls behind.
The mosaic floors, with the octagonal marble basin of the fountain. · Photo: Realsteel007 · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons

What is there today

The house was a peristyle house, its living rooms grouped round a courtyard with columns, the service rooms to the south, and a separate wing for the servants with its own door to the street. It filled a whole city block. Its floors, laid in the 4th and 5th centuries, have geometric figures, endless knots, flowers and greetings to visitors. The finest mosaic, in the middle of the main room, is a portrait of Eirene, the Greek goddess of peace, worked in finer tesserae than the rest, and the house is named after her (en.wikipedia; bg.wikipedia). An octagonal marble basin in the middle of a floor served as a fountain (en.wikipedia). The excavated area is 668 m², and a paved Roman street runs past it in the same underpass (en.wikipedia; bg.wikipedia).

Is it worth the trip?

Yes, if you like mosaics. The house is shown indoors, below street level, so it is a museum visit rather than a ruin, and it is a few minutes’ walk from the Roman theatre.

Getting there

The house is in the archaeological underpass of Tsar Boris III Boulevard, part of the Trakart cultural centre (bg.wikipedia), about 190 m from the Roman theatre. A paid car park is mapped about 60 m away and the Tunela bus stops about 75 m away (OpenStreetMap).

It is open daily, 09.00 to 18.00, with a lunch break from 12.30 to 13.30. A ticket is €3.58 for adults and €1.53 for students and visitors over 65; a combined ticket with the Bishop’s Basilica and the Small Basilica is €12.78 (oldplovdiv.bg, read 1 October 2026).

Visiting details

Opening hours
Daily 09.00–18.00, closed for lunch 12.30–13.30.
Tickets
€3.58 for adults and €1.53 for students and visitors over 65 (the operator's single-site ticket); free under 7. A combined ticket for the Bishop's Basilica, the Small Basilica and the Eirene Residence costs €12.78.
Parking
A paid car park is mapped about 60 m away (OSM way/1547061809, fee=yes); the Tunela bus stops are about 75 m away (OpenStreetMap).
On foot
About 1 min from the parking

Hours and prices checked 2 October 2026 on the operator's own site. Confirm before travelling.

History

The house was probably built in the middle of the 3rd century, after the destructive Gothic siege of Philippopolis in 250–251, over the ruins of several older houses destroyed in that invasion. It was badly damaged when Attila’s Huns invaded in 441–442, then repaired and enlarged, and abandoned at the end of the 6th century (en.wikipedia). It was found in 1983–1984, when the underpass was built, declared a cultural monument of national importance, and opened to the public in 2003 (en.wikipedia).

Nearby

  • A row of tall piers of red brick banded with pale stone, three of them still joined by round arches, standing on a low stone wall along a grassy verge beside a road, under a blue sky with clouds.

    Photo: Gitanes232 · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Commons

    3 km · aqueduct · Plovdiv Province

    Aqueducts of Plovdiv

    What you see is a row of tall piers in opus mixtum, courses of squared stone alternating with courses of brick, with a few arches restored between them, in the central strip of Komatevsko Shose Boulevard at the Komatevo junction.

  • A massive ruined gateway of stone and brick, its central arch still standing between two broken masses of masonry that rise above it, with a road running through the arch and trees on either side.

    Photo: BlackfishFoto · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Commons

    40 km · city · Plovdiv Province

    Diocletianopolis

    The walls run for 2,327 m round about 20 ha, 2.60–4 m thick and up to 12.5 m high, and once had 44 towers, four main gates and six smaller ones; the south and west gates survive best, the south gate rising to 13 m (bg.wikipedia).

Straight-line distances.

Sources

Every fact on this page comes from the records below, each used under the licence noted.

SourceLicence
Wikidata Q26898191CC0
OpenStreetMap node/9036247844ODbL
Wikipedia (en) — Domus EireneCC BY-SA 4.0
Wikipedia (bg) — Ейрене (Пловдив)CC BY-SA 4.0
Old Plovdiv (Starinen Plovdiv), the municipal institute — ticket prices and opening hourslicence not recorded