Saturday, 29 September 2007
Final pictures
Pictures of Friday and Saturday's return journey now posted: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=13201&l=76249&id=511738288
Day 18 – Saturday 29th September
Got up early, used facilities at the camp site and took down the tent all by 9.00am. Tried to pay the lady for camp site but the beds in reception did not seem to be moving as we banged on the door so headed off into town for some wine shopping in Caerrfor and breakfast of pain au chocolate and apricot juice left over from Turkey…. Beautiful!!!!
Lady was up by the time we got back to campsite so setteled up and hit the road once again….. Only about 150 miles to Calais, not too shabby. The roads were dead but the rain was so heavy we almost sailed to the ferry terminal…..
We arrived early, there was a little issue, over the last 18 days we had managed to misplace the ticket so had to sweet talk the lady into letting us onto the ferry but she succumbed to our designer stubble and trendy dishevelled looks and let us through and put us on an earlier sailing.
Crossing was fairly uneventful and time seemed to fly (or sail) and before we knew it we could see the white cliffs of Dover….. We were home!!
All in all we have had an amazing 2 and a half weeks and both have really enjoyed it…… to sum up……
Countries visited 13
Capital cities visited 8
Different beds slept in 9
Meals cooked 0
Miles covered approx 5,800
Hours driving approx 95
Number of boat trips 5
Arguments 0
Encounters with police 3 (inc. one false alarm)
Wicked sound track listens 8
Near death experiences 5 (all due to external factors)
Arrived back in London at 3.30pm. Thanks to everyone who has read and posted comment on the blog. Pencils will be dispatched ASAP!!
Just in cast you were having trouble with yesterdays TLA abriviated sentence, here are some clues…..
CBs Cool Beans From a colleague sam worked with in bristol
GKs Goodness Knows From wicked soundtrack
W Whatever From little Britain (Vicki
JO Jog On From Baz
YISE You is something else From Little Britain (fight fighters)
NtS Not too shabby From Adam Sandler (Hanukah song)
HaF Had a Few From Andrew and Sam’s dictionary of life
RaT Rough as toast From Jacki Smith (Sainsbury’s, polite version)
URish Utter Rubbish From twin town
PtB Posted the Blog From the modern English language!
HtR Hit the road A common phrase!
After our extensive travel experience across the continent we would be more than happy to undertake some private bookings for our lecture and comprehensive slide show entitled “Planning a holiday for dummies”. Rates are cheap, all you need to do is cook us dinner (as we have forgotten how) and provide accommodation if you are outside the M25 or if there is a complementary bottle of wine with dinner. (This is recommended to get a true flavour of the trip!)
Lady was up by the time we got back to campsite so setteled up and hit the road once again….. Only about 150 miles to Calais, not too shabby. The roads were dead but the rain was so heavy we almost sailed to the ferry terminal…..
We arrived early, there was a little issue, over the last 18 days we had managed to misplace the ticket so had to sweet talk the lady into letting us onto the ferry but she succumbed to our designer stubble and trendy dishevelled looks and let us through and put us on an earlier sailing.
Crossing was fairly uneventful and time seemed to fly (or sail) and before we knew it we could see the white cliffs of Dover….. We were home!!
All in all we have had an amazing 2 and a half weeks and both have really enjoyed it…… to sum up……
Countries visited 13
Capital cities visited 8
Different beds slept in 9
Meals cooked 0
Miles covered approx 5,800
Hours driving approx 95
Number of boat trips 5
Arguments 0
Encounters with police 3 (inc. one false alarm)
Wicked sound track listens 8
Near death experiences 5 (all due to external factors)
Arrived back in London at 3.30pm. Thanks to everyone who has read and posted comment on the blog. Pencils will be dispatched ASAP!!
Just in cast you were having trouble with yesterdays TLA abriviated sentence, here are some clues…..
CBs Cool Beans From a colleague sam worked with in bristol
GKs Goodness Knows From wicked soundtrack
W Whatever From little Britain (Vicki
JO Jog On From Baz
YISE You is something else From Little Britain (fight fighters)
NtS Not too shabby From Adam Sandler (Hanukah song)
HaF Had a Few From Andrew and Sam’s dictionary of life
RaT Rough as toast From Jacki Smith (Sainsbury’s, polite version)
URish Utter Rubbish From twin town
PtB Posted the Blog From the modern English language!
HtR Hit the road A common phrase!
After our extensive travel experience across the continent we would be more than happy to undertake some private bookings for our lecture and comprehensive slide show entitled “Planning a holiday for dummies”. Rates are cheap, all you need to do is cook us dinner (as we have forgotten how) and provide accommodation if you are outside the M25 or if there is a complementary bottle of wine with dinner. (This is recommended to get a true flavour of the trip!)
Day 17 - Friday 28th September
Our last full day of holiday abroad. Today’s mission is to find wineries, purchase wine and find a campsite to pitch tent before it gets dark! We’re only about 300miles from Calais now so today should be pretty laid back leaving only a morning’s drive to the ferry tomorrow.
Throughout our journey our conversations have varied somewhat. However, one consistent theme contained within everything that proceeds from Sam’s mouth involves ‘clichés’… or ‘catchphrases’ usually from films. I’ll give some examples: “Goodness knows”, “Cool beans” etc. Everyone, I’m sure, who’s ever met Sam knows about these idiosyncrasies. And to say they bugged Andrew would be too much, however, with 18 days of travelling ahead of us it didn’t take long for Andrew to mention the issue. Cunningly the solution involved TLAs (three letter abbreviations/acronyms). Cool beans soon became ‘CBs’, meaning ‘that’s pretty cool’, but then it became necessary to add to the abbreviations. We soon had ‘CBBs’ which stands for ‘cool baked beans’ which implies the subject is slightly better than CBs. Being the masters of catchphrases we then invented an abbreviation for something seriously impressive, so we invented ‘CBBITS’ (CBBs in tomato sauce!).
Sad you might be thinking… but see if you can work out the following paragraphs, this is how we iz speaking these days:
Awoke. Night’s sleep NtS, probably because we’d HaF last night. Breakfast disappointing, in fact it was URish. Had t’internet access so we PtB. Packed dusty and HtR. CBs, we were off.
Stopped at service station to buy a map and some oil for Dusty. Plotted route to Reims with vineyards on route – 133 of them! We’ll soon be in Champagne-Ardenne.
Arrived at Bollinger, they took one look at us, and said YISE, URish, so we JO and headed for Moet. CBBITS, they let us is! We looked RaT compared to all the swanky looking suits! Tour was NtS, got a free glass of champers and then HtR once again.
Headed towards Reims trying to find Moet vineyards, CBB’s we stumbled across them, amazed and giggling with excitement we took photos and stole some grapes then HtR heading for campsite. Map was URish, campsite nowhere to be found, W we thought and JO to the next one. URish it was closed, GK’s what the cartographers were drinking when they tacked up the map!!
Camping, W, no camping symbol on map in next town but when we got there there were signs for camping, URish it also was closed…. JO to next town where we decided we would get a hotel. Once again we saw signs for camping and decided to give it once last go! CBBITS it was open NtS. Tent up in 5 mins flat, into town for dinner. Amazing find, Laon, 2 huge gothic cathedrals, took photos and wandered through medieval walled city!! Had amazing pizza and a beautiful Cotes du Rhone NtS. Off to bed around 10.30……
CB’s we slept well despite not having HaF!!
Throughout our journey our conversations have varied somewhat. However, one consistent theme contained within everything that proceeds from Sam’s mouth involves ‘clichés’… or ‘catchphrases’ usually from films. I’ll give some examples: “Goodness knows”, “Cool beans” etc. Everyone, I’m sure, who’s ever met Sam knows about these idiosyncrasies. And to say they bugged Andrew would be too much, however, with 18 days of travelling ahead of us it didn’t take long for Andrew to mention the issue. Cunningly the solution involved TLAs (three letter abbreviations/acronyms). Cool beans soon became ‘CBs’, meaning ‘that’s pretty cool’, but then it became necessary to add to the abbreviations. We soon had ‘CBBs’ which stands for ‘cool baked beans’ which implies the subject is slightly better than CBs. Being the masters of catchphrases we then invented an abbreviation for something seriously impressive, so we invented ‘CBBITS’ (CBBs in tomato sauce!).
Sad you might be thinking… but see if you can work out the following paragraphs, this is how we iz speaking these days:
Awoke. Night’s sleep NtS, probably because we’d HaF last night. Breakfast disappointing, in fact it was URish. Had t’internet access so we PtB. Packed dusty and HtR. CBs, we were off.
Stopped at service station to buy a map and some oil for Dusty. Plotted route to Reims with vineyards on route – 133 of them! We’ll soon be in Champagne-Ardenne.
Arrived at Bollinger, they took one look at us, and said YISE, URish, so we JO and headed for Moet. CBBITS, they let us is! We looked RaT compared to all the swanky looking suits! Tour was NtS, got a free glass of champers and then HtR once again.
Headed towards Reims trying to find Moet vineyards, CBB’s we stumbled across them, amazed and giggling with excitement we took photos and stole some grapes then HtR heading for campsite. Map was URish, campsite nowhere to be found, W we thought and JO to the next one. URish it was closed, GK’s what the cartographers were drinking when they tacked up the map!!
Camping, W, no camping symbol on map in next town but when we got there there were signs for camping, URish it also was closed…. JO to next town where we decided we would get a hotel. Once again we saw signs for camping and decided to give it once last go! CBBITS it was open NtS. Tent up in 5 mins flat, into town for dinner. Amazing find, Laon, 2 huge gothic cathedrals, took photos and wandered through medieval walled city!! Had amazing pizza and a beautiful Cotes du Rhone NtS. Off to bed around 10.30……
CB’s we slept well despite not having HaF!!
Saturday, 15 September 2007
More Photos
More photos uploaded:
Monday in Rome: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=13075&l=2ae24&id=511738288
Tuesday in Rome: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=13077&l=eccfd&id=511738288
Switzerland: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=13079&l=11959&id=511738288
Monday in Rome: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=13075&l=2ae24&id=511738288
Tuesday in Rome: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=13077&l=eccfd&id=511738288
Switzerland: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=13079&l=11959&id=511738288
Day 15 Wednesday 26th September
Today when the alarm went off we had to drag ourselves out of bed as we had a big day ahead, we hope to see the rest of Italy today and be in Switzerland for tea! We got our running shoes on and ran through Rome (up the Spanish steps) to the car park, retrieved poor old dusty (yep, 15 days in and we have named the car!!) and headed back to the hotel. Showered, ate, packed and were on the road by 9am! Our plan is to do a drive-by photo/cultural/scenic whistle stop, pop in, looks good wham bam thank you mam tour of Tuscany; Florance, Pisa, Lucca but avoiding Milan like the plague. Discussions for today’s itinerary were lengthy but we have (I think) settled on Interlaken in Switzerland which is about 500 miles to do today in total. (177 done as I am typing this)!!
Florance was pants, we drove in, got lost, took one picture of a woman balancing a guy on her head (nothing even remotely scenic), found ourselves on the map and left!!
We hate the Italian road signage system, it’s also pants! The map is always different to the actual road layout (maybe it’s because the map was printed in 1982???) at important junctions and they never put anything useful like a road number or junction number on the signs. Maybe they aren’t so hot with numbers!
We didn’t go into Lucca as we needed to make up time! We missed Pisa because we went the wrong way on the motorway! Our opinion is that if it’s not big enough to see from 15k’s off then it’s probably not worth seeing at all!!!!!
It started to rain just as we got to Parma, the first rain we have seen all trip! Boo!! (camping tonight will be fun!!)
The rain continued. Made it across the Swiss border without an eye-batted. Rain was still heavy as we headed up through Switzerland towards the infamous Gutthard tunnel (at 17KM it’s the longest tunnel in Europe… we think). Temperature outside the tunnel had surprisingly dropped to 5C but inside the tunnel it steadily rose to 29C! Out of the tunnel we decided to take the shortest route to Interlarken which happened to involve going over the Susten Pass. In hindsight this was not the most thought-out of decisions as we ended up climbing so high in still miserable weather conditions until the temperature dropped to -2.5C. What we forgot was that at low temperatures rain turns to snow! Driving conditions were interesting! Good job we had a competent bob sleigher at the wheel. We felt rather like the Jamaican bob-sleigh team in the film ‘Cool Runnings’ when they were up against the Swiss!
Campsite found eventually and we pitched the tent in the dark successfully – thanks Steve. Headed into Interlarken for supper and unadventurously selected a Pizza place called ‘Piz Paz’ which for it’s name excelled itself… and had the best toilets in the world … we’ll just say they were robotical and leave the rest to your imaginations J
Got back to the tent prepared for a noisy night’s sleep.
Florance was pants, we drove in, got lost, took one picture of a woman balancing a guy on her head (nothing even remotely scenic), found ourselves on the map and left!!
We hate the Italian road signage system, it’s also pants! The map is always different to the actual road layout (maybe it’s because the map was printed in 1982???) at important junctions and they never put anything useful like a road number or junction number on the signs. Maybe they aren’t so hot with numbers!
We didn’t go into Lucca as we needed to make up time! We missed Pisa because we went the wrong way on the motorway! Our opinion is that if it’s not big enough to see from 15k’s off then it’s probably not worth seeing at all!!!!!
It started to rain just as we got to Parma, the first rain we have seen all trip! Boo!! (camping tonight will be fun!!)
The rain continued. Made it across the Swiss border without an eye-batted. Rain was still heavy as we headed up through Switzerland towards the infamous Gutthard tunnel (at 17KM it’s the longest tunnel in Europe… we think). Temperature outside the tunnel had surprisingly dropped to 5C but inside the tunnel it steadily rose to 29C! Out of the tunnel we decided to take the shortest route to Interlarken which happened to involve going over the Susten Pass. In hindsight this was not the most thought-out of decisions as we ended up climbing so high in still miserable weather conditions until the temperature dropped to -2.5C. What we forgot was that at low temperatures rain turns to snow! Driving conditions were interesting! Good job we had a competent bob sleigher at the wheel. We felt rather like the Jamaican bob-sleigh team in the film ‘Cool Runnings’ when they were up against the Swiss!
Campsite found eventually and we pitched the tent in the dark successfully – thanks Steve. Headed into Interlarken for supper and unadventurously selected a Pizza place called ‘Piz Paz’ which for it’s name excelled itself… and had the best toilets in the world … we’ll just say they were robotical and leave the rest to your imaginations J
Got back to the tent prepared for a noisy night’s sleep.
Day 14 – Tuesday 25th September
Our plan of getting up and going for a early morning run around Rome went out of the window when Andrew silenced the alarm and we went back to sleep!! We were meeting Steve and Rachel at their hotel at 10.30 so showered and had breakfast then headed off to the ‘Savoy’!
The day was action packed and the miles racked up (approx 10 miles according to tour guide De-wilde and her guide book!)
Having arrived too late last night to go up St Peters Basicila we decided to make this out first stop of the day! On route we had a stroll in the park, walked through Popola square where they had some line fountains, but they were not a patch on the lions in Trafalgar square!! By this time we were flagging so stopped for coffee but no cake!! We climbed the 540 steps and were rewarded with amazing views of Rome and the Vatican City! Took some snaps, gave the pope a wave and headed off to wards the Forum.
On route we stopped for lunch which consisted of salad and a beer! We then stopped again to buy ice cream and we have to say it was the best ice cream ever. Andy had choc rum and prune and Sam had Amaretto yum….. yum….!!
The Forum basically is the ruins of the ancient city of Rome which was the seat of power and government through out the Roman Empire, which at its peak in approx 100 AD surrounded the Med and was pretty much the ‘known’ world……. (maps in photo album).
The highlights were the Temple to one of the gods and the coliseum, but it was all pretty impressive.
Andrew took over as map reader and tour guide and we went on an alternative tour of the city but he did manage to find us a restaurant that served gnocchi…… yum yum!!
Cocktails tonight were in a little bar on a back street called the news café, if your ever in Rome we can recommend the colada’s which came in many different flavours. We the played the game ‘mystery drink’ you had to order a drink from the menu that you had not heard of before. That lasted for 1 round before Steve and Rachel left…. Thanks again both entertaining and guiding us round Rome…. We hope you get home safely!
The ‘boyz’ then hit the town big time (for another 2 drinks) then toddled off to bed, by now it was about 12.30
The day was action packed and the miles racked up (approx 10 miles according to tour guide De-wilde and her guide book!)
Having arrived too late last night to go up St Peters Basicila we decided to make this out first stop of the day! On route we had a stroll in the park, walked through Popola square where they had some line fountains, but they were not a patch on the lions in Trafalgar square!! By this time we were flagging so stopped for coffee but no cake!! We climbed the 540 steps and were rewarded with amazing views of Rome and the Vatican City! Took some snaps, gave the pope a wave and headed off to wards the Forum.
On route we stopped for lunch which consisted of salad and a beer! We then stopped again to buy ice cream and we have to say it was the best ice cream ever. Andy had choc rum and prune and Sam had Amaretto yum….. yum….!!
The Forum basically is the ruins of the ancient city of Rome which was the seat of power and government through out the Roman Empire, which at its peak in approx 100 AD surrounded the Med and was pretty much the ‘known’ world……. (maps in photo album).
The highlights were the Temple to one of the gods and the coliseum, but it was all pretty impressive.
Andrew took over as map reader and tour guide and we went on an alternative tour of the city but he did manage to find us a restaurant that served gnocchi…… yum yum!!
Cocktails tonight were in a little bar on a back street called the news café, if your ever in Rome we can recommend the colada’s which came in many different flavours. We the played the game ‘mystery drink’ you had to order a drink from the menu that you had not heard of before. That lasted for 1 round before Steve and Rachel left…. Thanks again both entertaining and guiding us round Rome…. We hope you get home safely!
The ‘boyz’ then hit the town big time (for another 2 drinks) then toddled off to bed, by now it was about 12.30
Day 13 – Monday 24th September
We slept well in our bunk beds in our little cabin on the boat. There was a rhythmic shudder from the engine that was in some weird way quite soothing. We were supposed to dock at 7am so we set alarms for 6.15, got up and showered and waited for a tannoy. However the boat didn’t reach Italy until 10am! We filled the 3 hours by people-watching (a bunch of loud, smoking lorry-drivers, and one stow-away!) and trying to guess which bit of land we were aiming for.
Arrived in Bari, Italy problem-free. Good motorways. Drove via Naples and saw Mt Vesuveus and headed for Rome. Descended one big hill into Rome and battled our way to the hotel. Hotel is lovely; very old – our room is about 20ft high with a wooden ceiling, windows have original shutters and it’s decorated green!
Met Stephen and Rachel who took it upon themselves to be our tour guides for the afternoon. We saw St Peter’s Basilica, Piazza Navona, the Pantheon, the Spanish Steps, the Fontana di Trevi. All very impressive. Had a lovely meal and then went for cocktails.
Lots of walking! Photos speak for themselves, enjoy! No point us rambling on further.
Arrived in Bari, Italy problem-free. Good motorways. Drove via Naples and saw Mt Vesuveus and headed for Rome. Descended one big hill into Rome and battled our way to the hotel. Hotel is lovely; very old – our room is about 20ft high with a wooden ceiling, windows have original shutters and it’s decorated green!
Met Stephen and Rachel who took it upon themselves to be our tour guides for the afternoon. We saw St Peter’s Basilica, Piazza Navona, the Pantheon, the Spanish Steps, the Fontana di Trevi. All very impressive. Had a lovely meal and then went for cocktails.
Lots of walking! Photos speak for themselves, enjoy! No point us rambling on further.
Day 12 Sunday September 23rd
After a restless night, thank you Hannah Jenkins for phoning at 3am and Andy’s pet fly for buzzing incessantly, we woke up with the alarm at 7am, showered, packed and set off. Sam ran the distraction whilst Andy returned the corkscrew to the bar as we left……
We followed the coastal road for a few miles, the sun was rising over the town we had stayed in and the sea, all looked pretty cool!!
Made it to Thessalonica for 9.30 ready for some breakfast, however the Greeks don’t seem to get up that early and for the 2nd time since arriving in the country all that was on offer was some toast! Now whether they are pretty rubbish cooks or whether they are extremely modest about there toast we are not sure, maybe it’s a national secrete we are yet to discover…… Being the cultured ‘dudes’ that we are we decided against the voyage of discovery and went to Starbucks!!
Thessalonica was a bit of a let down to be honest, the old bits didn’t seem to be preserved in any way, they just had new build all around them, so we did not stay long and got back on the road.
We were ambling along and happened to glance to our right and there was a big mountain, “There’s lovely” (needs to be said with authentic welsh accent) we thought wonder how big it is??? After consulting the oracle that is our AA map of Europe we discovered it was Mt Olympus so we thought we’d have a look. Turned out it was 2918 meters high which is actually, possibly, nearly 3 times as big as OUR biggest mountain at home! Never….. (again must be said in a dodgy welsh accent)!
Nestled in the foothills of the mountain was the monastery of Dionysus, some old Monk who thought he was quite important….. Allegedly it was built in the middle of the 16 century, but we reckoned it all looked a shiny and new. Aang about abit we thought what’s going on here?? So we purchased the guide book and apparently the Germans bombed it in 1943, and so its all been tacked up again since then! The funniest bit was the last page of the guide book where we are told that the Monks are suing the German government for damages because the Greek government wont cough up any more cash!
The next gem on our road trip through Greece was a place called Meteora. A fantastic mountain range in the middle of Greece, we spent a few moments naming all the mountain and thought one looked like an elephant with a massive great rock on its back. This reminded us of a story that we had heard about 2 elephants in the middle of Africa. Daddy elephant, sent his son Suki to the river to fetch water. “Suki” he said, “go to da river to fetch sum watta”. So off went Suki to look for the river. When he got there he found only a dry river bed so picked up a big stone to take back to his father to prove to him the river was dry. When he got back he said to his father, “I could not fetch da watta from da river, it waz too dry farther”!! Suki’s daddy was so mad that he turned Suki into stone! Hence the rock formation that we saw…..!!!
The next 200 km’s was spent rallying through the middle of Greece’s mountainous centre….. A new road is under construction which we experienced for only 5km’s, the rest was on some wacky racer roads, which obviously Andrew loved and Sam’s car coped with rather well….. We are however now equal on off road near misses, both have had to touch the verge in order to avoid sudden death whilst on mountain passes.
We made it to Iguoumenitas, just over 500 miles west of this morning in about 10 hours……. Our boat to Italy across the Adriatic Sea is full off lorry drivers, probably the ones that Andrew overtook on the mountain pass earlier today!! Basically it’s a sort of cross between a police holding cell and a western 1950’s saloon bar….. We feel right at home but will possibly be in bed before a gun fight breaks out……
Sam wants to say a little something about his first experience “sailing” … he’s never had a cabin before and is very excited… hopefully not too much to sleep! We have a very small, but perfectly well-equipped cabin with bunk-beds! First time since Andy was 6 or so! Can’t wait for bed-time, but right now the Metaxa and beer calls! I had a dream this voyage would be, so different from this hell I’m living…… Name that tune!!!!!!
We followed the coastal road for a few miles, the sun was rising over the town we had stayed in and the sea, all looked pretty cool!!
Made it to Thessalonica for 9.30 ready for some breakfast, however the Greeks don’t seem to get up that early and for the 2nd time since arriving in the country all that was on offer was some toast! Now whether they are pretty rubbish cooks or whether they are extremely modest about there toast we are not sure, maybe it’s a national secrete we are yet to discover…… Being the cultured ‘dudes’ that we are we decided against the voyage of discovery and went to Starbucks!!
Thessalonica was a bit of a let down to be honest, the old bits didn’t seem to be preserved in any way, they just had new build all around them, so we did not stay long and got back on the road.
We were ambling along and happened to glance to our right and there was a big mountain, “There’s lovely” (needs to be said with authentic welsh accent) we thought wonder how big it is??? After consulting the oracle that is our AA map of Europe we discovered it was Mt Olympus so we thought we’d have a look. Turned out it was 2918 meters high which is actually, possibly, nearly 3 times as big as OUR biggest mountain at home! Never….. (again must be said in a dodgy welsh accent)!
Nestled in the foothills of the mountain was the monastery of Dionysus, some old Monk who thought he was quite important….. Allegedly it was built in the middle of the 16 century, but we reckoned it all looked a shiny and new. Aang about abit we thought what’s going on here?? So we purchased the guide book and apparently the Germans bombed it in 1943, and so its all been tacked up again since then! The funniest bit was the last page of the guide book where we are told that the Monks are suing the German government for damages because the Greek government wont cough up any more cash!
The next gem on our road trip through Greece was a place called Meteora. A fantastic mountain range in the middle of Greece, we spent a few moments naming all the mountain and thought one looked like an elephant with a massive great rock on its back. This reminded us of a story that we had heard about 2 elephants in the middle of Africa. Daddy elephant, sent his son Suki to the river to fetch water. “Suki” he said, “go to da river to fetch sum watta”. So off went Suki to look for the river. When he got there he found only a dry river bed so picked up a big stone to take back to his father to prove to him the river was dry. When he got back he said to his father, “I could not fetch da watta from da river, it waz too dry farther”!! Suki’s daddy was so mad that he turned Suki into stone! Hence the rock formation that we saw…..!!!
The next 200 km’s was spent rallying through the middle of Greece’s mountainous centre….. A new road is under construction which we experienced for only 5km’s, the rest was on some wacky racer roads, which obviously Andrew loved and Sam’s car coped with rather well….. We are however now equal on off road near misses, both have had to touch the verge in order to avoid sudden death whilst on mountain passes.
We made it to Iguoumenitas, just over 500 miles west of this morning in about 10 hours……. Our boat to Italy across the Adriatic Sea is full off lorry drivers, probably the ones that Andrew overtook on the mountain pass earlier today!! Basically it’s a sort of cross between a police holding cell and a western 1950’s saloon bar….. We feel right at home but will possibly be in bed before a gun fight breaks out……
Sam wants to say a little something about his first experience “sailing” … he’s never had a cabin before and is very excited… hopefully not too much to sleep! We have a very small, but perfectly well-equipped cabin with bunk-beds! First time since Andy was 6 or so! Can’t wait for bed-time, but right now the Metaxa and beer calls! I had a dream this voyage would be, so different from this hell I’m living…… Name that tune!!!!!!
Day 11 – 22nd September
Up at 7am, all packed and by 8am we were breakfasted and ready for our return to the road. We have had a great week in Turkey, Darren and Rachael’s apartment is brilliant, everything you could want is there and the pool and views are fab. Plug plug … if anyone wants a last minute winter deal, please speak to Sam or Andy and they’ll rustle you up something.
During our week in Turkey we uncovered a few traits of the Turks which we thought we’d share with you in the form of a list of idiosyncrasies.
The most significant trait of all Turks unequivocally without a doubt has to be that they are smiling, friendly folk. But even so, we have a slight inkling that this may have something to do with number 2.
We’re sure of this one, the Turks have cunningly exposed a weakness in the British tourists, that we like to spend money. Since they’re desperate to have our money it all works out rather well. Moreover, in an attempt to get said money they employ cunning stealth tactics such as putting ‘BEST’ before their shop names… e.g. “Best Barber”.
The Turks, possibly to achieve 1 and 2, have clearly studied in detail the British culture and language. For instance, it’s not uncommon to see an iron mongers named “Del Boys”, nor to see the shopkeeper (a 12 year old boy) sat outside saying “Cheap as chips!” as you walk by. Yes, they really have picked up on the more sophisticated of English idioms. In fact, judging by the calibre of some of the British tourists we met we think the Turks may be pitching this a bit high!!!
Randomness. Having driven from north to south, and all around the middle of western Turkey we feel we have experienced a cross-section of Turkish life; from mountain villages to large cities and yet one common characteristic appears throughout. That is their randomness! They just seem to loiter in the most strange places. From central reservations of motorways, to sides of deserted mountain roads miles and miles from civilisation. Occasionally they will be walking, sorry ambling along the barren roads, but more often there will be a wheelbarrow involved, or they will just be standing or sitting doing apparently nothing. Why? After days of deliberation we have a few of theories. a) They’re bored b) they’re lost c) they have a death wish. Other suggestions via comment!
Smoking. As mentioned in our ‘health’ spa day, the Turks seriously enjoy the odd… no the compulsory cigarette.
Car tooting. This is continuous and we have no idea why. It’s never more than a short ‘toot’ but that seems enough to cover ‘get out of my way’, ‘hi there!’, ‘good morning’, ‘thanks’, ‘go on then, pass me’, but overall perhaps it is linked to 1.
Back to today’s story. It’s now 11:11pm and we’ve had quite an eventful day.
It started at about 8:30 this morning, having done a good half hour’s drive, we got pulled over by the police. Fully expecting this, Sam leaped out of the car while Andy dug around for passports and driving licenses. When Andy turned around, Sam was already shaking hands (or was he palming something across to the copper)… either way it seems to have done the trick as he said we could go, it was actually the car behind that he wanted!! Oops!!
About 6 hours later a similar thing occurred. Yes, we were pulled over again, this time for real. The copper came and talked through the passenger window to Andy, expecting it to be the drivers side, managed to totally confuse himself as there seemed to be no steering wheel, even when Andy told the nice man that it was Sam that was driving he still seemed unable to grasp this so booked him anyway!!! However booked may be the wrong term to use when describing the actual event! The police man wrote 12% on a bit of paper and 222 YLT, which we interpreted as, 12% over the speed limit and 222 YLY (Turkish Lira) fine…….. Andy managed to negotiate paying 40 YLT and pretty much getting off scot free, making a bit of a joke of the whole debacle.
20minutes later we were on the road again. We were soon at the ferry crossing the channel from Asian Turkey to the European continent side of Turkey. Arrived and glanced at the sailing time (or so we thought) which was 2minutes ahead of our car clock! Thinking we were about to miss it we hurriedly withdrew the needed cash and rushed to the ticket office, only to discover the clock was showing the current time, not sailing time! The boat was like something out of an Ian Flemming novel, full of smoking men wearing thick overcoats stood ‘round in small groups. We were wearing shorts, t-shorts and flip flops and got stared at the whole time. We ate our only meal since breakfast – a bag of crisps and biscuits, at 4pm. Despite boat’s efficiency and surprising ability to float, toilet facilities were not up to scratch! See photo!
We were soon on dry land again and heading for the motorway that would take us to Greece…… Andy was map reading and thus in total control of our route….. he also had the compass out so Sam was sure he was in safe hands……. HOWEVER, we ended up on definitely the worst road all trip, or possibly ever. The car was scraping on the uneven tarmac, and our speed was down to about 2mph. Worse still there was a man with a rifle standing by the side of the road, about to embark on some target practice … put in to perspective the radar ‘gun’. Andy determined the road would join the highway (which we could now see to our left) insisted we continued… 20min later Sam turned around! We swapped driving, so Andy could have a go at the ‘off roading’ also, and Sam took over navigation, and a video for memorability!
Once on the correct route, we thought we might need some Euros for once we entered the Greek toll roads (which in hindsight we didn’t need at all! So much for trying to ‘plan’). We entered the last town before the border and headed for the nearest cash point… what we hadn’t anticipated was we were actually on the set of Borat! The in-bred, backward town came to a standstill as Sam managed to jump out of the car and head for a cashpoint as the car zoomed off (apparently driverless). The horses and carts summed up the town, and the fact that our cards weren’t going to work here.
However, we eventually crossed the border into Greece. After 5 stops from the Turkish passport control, customs officer and whoever else, and 3 stamps in our passports. The Greek controls simply glanced at our passports and let us through! Thank you Europe!
Finally we made it to our hotel… a cheap place in Kabara, roughly 100miles inside the Greece border. It’s like something out of Alo’ Alo’/Faulty Towers. The barman was the funniest; when we asked for a bottle of wine he presented us with a dusty antique, and said ‘I think this one’s red??’! When he tried to open the 1998 bootle he managed to break the cork. We took the corkscrew and headed off with a bottle we’d bought as a souvenir gift .. sorry Nicole!
Thus ended a very long day, but hopefully with less to do tomorrow to get to Igumenetsa for our Ferry at 9pm.
During our week in Turkey we uncovered a few traits of the Turks which we thought we’d share with you in the form of a list of idiosyncrasies.
The most significant trait of all Turks unequivocally without a doubt has to be that they are smiling, friendly folk. But even so, we have a slight inkling that this may have something to do with number 2.
We’re sure of this one, the Turks have cunningly exposed a weakness in the British tourists, that we like to spend money. Since they’re desperate to have our money it all works out rather well. Moreover, in an attempt to get said money they employ cunning stealth tactics such as putting ‘BEST’ before their shop names… e.g. “Best Barber”.
The Turks, possibly to achieve 1 and 2, have clearly studied in detail the British culture and language. For instance, it’s not uncommon to see an iron mongers named “Del Boys”, nor to see the shopkeeper (a 12 year old boy) sat outside saying “Cheap as chips!” as you walk by. Yes, they really have picked up on the more sophisticated of English idioms. In fact, judging by the calibre of some of the British tourists we met we think the Turks may be pitching this a bit high!!!
Randomness. Having driven from north to south, and all around the middle of western Turkey we feel we have experienced a cross-section of Turkish life; from mountain villages to large cities and yet one common characteristic appears throughout. That is their randomness! They just seem to loiter in the most strange places. From central reservations of motorways, to sides of deserted mountain roads miles and miles from civilisation. Occasionally they will be walking, sorry ambling along the barren roads, but more often there will be a wheelbarrow involved, or they will just be standing or sitting doing apparently nothing. Why? After days of deliberation we have a few of theories. a) They’re bored b) they’re lost c) they have a death wish. Other suggestions via comment!
Smoking. As mentioned in our ‘health’ spa day, the Turks seriously enjoy the odd… no the compulsory cigarette.
Car tooting. This is continuous and we have no idea why. It’s never more than a short ‘toot’ but that seems enough to cover ‘get out of my way’, ‘hi there!’, ‘good morning’, ‘thanks’, ‘go on then, pass me’, but overall perhaps it is linked to 1.
Back to today’s story. It’s now 11:11pm and we’ve had quite an eventful day.
It started at about 8:30 this morning, having done a good half hour’s drive, we got pulled over by the police. Fully expecting this, Sam leaped out of the car while Andy dug around for passports and driving licenses. When Andy turned around, Sam was already shaking hands (or was he palming something across to the copper)… either way it seems to have done the trick as he said we could go, it was actually the car behind that he wanted!! Oops!!
About 6 hours later a similar thing occurred. Yes, we were pulled over again, this time for real. The copper came and talked through the passenger window to Andy, expecting it to be the drivers side, managed to totally confuse himself as there seemed to be no steering wheel, even when Andy told the nice man that it was Sam that was driving he still seemed unable to grasp this so booked him anyway!!! However booked may be the wrong term to use when describing the actual event! The police man wrote 12% on a bit of paper and 222 YLT, which we interpreted as, 12% over the speed limit and 222 YLY (Turkish Lira) fine…….. Andy managed to negotiate paying 40 YLT and pretty much getting off scot free, making a bit of a joke of the whole debacle.
20minutes later we were on the road again. We were soon at the ferry crossing the channel from Asian Turkey to the European continent side of Turkey. Arrived and glanced at the sailing time (or so we thought) which was 2minutes ahead of our car clock! Thinking we were about to miss it we hurriedly withdrew the needed cash and rushed to the ticket office, only to discover the clock was showing the current time, not sailing time! The boat was like something out of an Ian Flemming novel, full of smoking men wearing thick overcoats stood ‘round in small groups. We were wearing shorts, t-shorts and flip flops and got stared at the whole time. We ate our only meal since breakfast – a bag of crisps and biscuits, at 4pm. Despite boat’s efficiency and surprising ability to float, toilet facilities were not up to scratch! See photo!
We were soon on dry land again and heading for the motorway that would take us to Greece…… Andy was map reading and thus in total control of our route….. he also had the compass out so Sam was sure he was in safe hands……. HOWEVER, we ended up on definitely the worst road all trip, or possibly ever. The car was scraping on the uneven tarmac, and our speed was down to about 2mph. Worse still there was a man with a rifle standing by the side of the road, about to embark on some target practice … put in to perspective the radar ‘gun’. Andy determined the road would join the highway (which we could now see to our left) insisted we continued… 20min later Sam turned around! We swapped driving, so Andy could have a go at the ‘off roading’ also, and Sam took over navigation, and a video for memorability!
Once on the correct route, we thought we might need some Euros for once we entered the Greek toll roads (which in hindsight we didn’t need at all! So much for trying to ‘plan’). We entered the last town before the border and headed for the nearest cash point… what we hadn’t anticipated was we were actually on the set of Borat! The in-bred, backward town came to a standstill as Sam managed to jump out of the car and head for a cashpoint as the car zoomed off (apparently driverless). The horses and carts summed up the town, and the fact that our cards weren’t going to work here.
However, we eventually crossed the border into Greece. After 5 stops from the Turkish passport control, customs officer and whoever else, and 3 stamps in our passports. The Greek controls simply glanced at our passports and let us through! Thank you Europe!
Finally we made it to our hotel… a cheap place in Kabara, roughly 100miles inside the Greece border. It’s like something out of Alo’ Alo’/Faulty Towers. The barman was the funniest; when we asked for a bottle of wine he presented us with a dusty antique, and said ‘I think this one’s red??’! When he tried to open the 1998 bootle he managed to break the cork. We took the corkscrew and headed off with a bottle we’d bought as a souvenir gift .. sorry Nicole!
Thus ended a very long day, but hopefully with less to do tomorrow to get to Igumenetsa for our Ferry at 9pm.
Day 10 – Friday September 21st 2007
Andy finished his book today! Sam’s wondering if he’ll get a conversation out of him now????
Today was relaxation day, preparing for the journey home. The car also is probably in need of relaxation, well it’s been rested but keeps flashing up ‘600miles to service’ oops. So we took it to a garage and fed it some diesel, and checked the air pressure in the tyres, pretty much all a VW garage will do to it and it didn’t cast £500 like last time!!!!
Then we were off for a Turkish bath, known to us locals as an hamam. This is something that was introduced during the Roman period and has remained popular for over 700 years. Its popularity is not just for reasons of cleanliness but also an important part of Turkish social culture. They are a place to come with friends and family to relax and have fun. Hamams are known to be beneficial for blood circulation and exfoliation of the skin, one thing is for sure you will definitely feel a few years younger when you come out … we do!
See, ain’t we cultured?
The experience was actually pretty good. We lay on a warm marble slab with a head cushion in a steamy room for about 20min. then some rather excited young man came in and exfoliated us with a hand loafer, before pouring freezing cold water over us. Next they filled something that looked like a pair of old dear’s tights with soap bubbles and spread it all over us before repeating the freezing water soak. All very refreshing.
We then got dressed in a ridiculous tea-towel come table cloth, with 2 other towels for shoulders and head that made us look like 2nd rate shepherds in a nativity play, but when in Turkey…….
After a ‘free’ glass of water we decided to have massages… Sam got a huge fat bloke whilst Andy got a sweaty young guy who sounded like he was about to have a heart attack any moment. (how we didn’t giggle out loud I don’t know,…… They left us for as long as we wanted afterwards to relax, and we almost fell asleep – some cunning ploy??
One thing mustn’t be assumed, that is that Turkish baths aren’t “health” spas, oh no, it is customary for the employees to smoke in the baths whilst looking after you! We were flabbergasted that the guy had to put his cig down to hand us pillows. More about Turkish idiosyncrasies later.
We didn’t have enough cash to pay, but the guy had already said ‘no problem my friend, after you bath I take you to cash machine’ (please insert rough looking, slightly dizzy, cross eyed Turk accent). He was so excited when he saw our car, ‘eees on the wrong side!!!’, ‘yes’, we replied ‘that’s because we drive on the other side of the road’, ‘buuut eees on the wrong side!!!’… oh dear!
While Andy was at the cash machine he wanted a go in the driver’s seat and Sam had to explain the peddle layout to him.
Next we went to Kayakoy. Although the history of this city dates back to 3000 BC, the limited number of sarcophagi and the rock tombs still standing are dated to the 4th century BC. The buildings on the slope were constructed during the 2nd part of the 19th Century and the first quarter of the 20th century. Basically it’s a big ghost town, and we reckon the best hide and seek venue in the world.
Lunch was rather tropical, in a restaurant under a vine. Weird American lady ran the joint, it was all very surreal. Andy’s mixed meat pancake was very good though!
It’s our last day today! We’re planning to find a shisha place for dinner tonight, that serves real kebabs. Them home for tidying and packing before and early night ready for tomorrow’s journey to Greece… route and distance as yet unknown.
Talk to you all tomorrow, we’re back in the car again for a week so who knows what’s coming our way!!!
Today was relaxation day, preparing for the journey home. The car also is probably in need of relaxation, well it’s been rested but keeps flashing up ‘600miles to service’ oops. So we took it to a garage and fed it some diesel, and checked the air pressure in the tyres, pretty much all a VW garage will do to it and it didn’t cast £500 like last time!!!!
Then we were off for a Turkish bath, known to us locals as an hamam. This is something that was introduced during the Roman period and has remained popular for over 700 years. Its popularity is not just for reasons of cleanliness but also an important part of Turkish social culture. They are a place to come with friends and family to relax and have fun. Hamams are known to be beneficial for blood circulation and exfoliation of the skin, one thing is for sure you will definitely feel a few years younger when you come out … we do!
See, ain’t we cultured?
The experience was actually pretty good. We lay on a warm marble slab with a head cushion in a steamy room for about 20min. then some rather excited young man came in and exfoliated us with a hand loafer, before pouring freezing cold water over us. Next they filled something that looked like a pair of old dear’s tights with soap bubbles and spread it all over us before repeating the freezing water soak. All very refreshing.
We then got dressed in a ridiculous tea-towel come table cloth, with 2 other towels for shoulders and head that made us look like 2nd rate shepherds in a nativity play, but when in Turkey…….
After a ‘free’ glass of water we decided to have massages… Sam got a huge fat bloke whilst Andy got a sweaty young guy who sounded like he was about to have a heart attack any moment. (how we didn’t giggle out loud I don’t know,…… They left us for as long as we wanted afterwards to relax, and we almost fell asleep – some cunning ploy??
One thing mustn’t be assumed, that is that Turkish baths aren’t “health” spas, oh no, it is customary for the employees to smoke in the baths whilst looking after you! We were flabbergasted that the guy had to put his cig down to hand us pillows. More about Turkish idiosyncrasies later.
We didn’t have enough cash to pay, but the guy had already said ‘no problem my friend, after you bath I take you to cash machine’ (please insert rough looking, slightly dizzy, cross eyed Turk accent). He was so excited when he saw our car, ‘eees on the wrong side!!!’, ‘yes’, we replied ‘that’s because we drive on the other side of the road’, ‘buuut eees on the wrong side!!!’… oh dear!
While Andy was at the cash machine he wanted a go in the driver’s seat and Sam had to explain the peddle layout to him.
Next we went to Kayakoy. Although the history of this city dates back to 3000 BC, the limited number of sarcophagi and the rock tombs still standing are dated to the 4th century BC. The buildings on the slope were constructed during the 2nd part of the 19th Century and the first quarter of the 20th century. Basically it’s a big ghost town, and we reckon the best hide and seek venue in the world.
Lunch was rather tropical, in a restaurant under a vine. Weird American lady ran the joint, it was all very surreal. Andy’s mixed meat pancake was very good though!
It’s our last day today! We’re planning to find a shisha place for dinner tonight, that serves real kebabs. Them home for tidying and packing before and early night ready for tomorrow’s journey to Greece… route and distance as yet unknown.
Talk to you all tomorrow, we’re back in the car again for a week so who knows what’s coming our way!!!
Thursday 20th September
Well… last night’s activities ended up at our favourite cocktail bar after a great Italian meal. It happened to be karaoke night… Oh dear I hear you say, we know what coming……
Ended up having only 2 hours sleep. Now we know what most of you are thinking… no we weren’t singing until the early hours, we went home just before closing time (and before we got kicked out, but we did own that dance floor…!) and we talked until the morning call to prayers! We can’t believe we haven’t commented on the Muslim call to prayers before! They’re as regular as clockwork (they probably are clockwork) and about as often as 6 times a day. A voice usually starts by saying a one-liner (the call we presume), then there’s a short crackle, a tape evidently is turned on and some strange warbling singing noise vaguely sounding like Elsie (those at Ealing will understand) chants something we have no idea about. All very entertaining until you realise you’ve been up yakking until 5:20am!
Today then, a big day (for Sam, yes he’s the boat lover). Nipped to the shops to get foods for a picnic, then headed to the beach to collect ‘our’ boat. Soon we were captain and first mate in charge of a 75bhp cruise liner!! What a fantastic way to see the coast line!!! The water was beautifully clean and clear enough to see the sea bed through! It was the warmest sea either of us had ever been in, we have no idea what temperature it was, but after a 2 minute deliberation we’ve come to the conclusion it must’ve been around air temperature (31C today) as we didn’t feel the slightest bit different after jumping overboard, apart from wet of course.
We sailed around all the coastline that we had enough fuel for, and stopped in at every cove. We must’ve anchored around 8 times. We were repeatedly stopped by a passing ice-cream vendor on a little boat, amazing, we promised we’d buy one at lunch time. It seemed his job was two-fold; to aid broken down boats and to sell everyone else an ice-cream, “to his members he was the 4th and 5th emergency services”! There was all sorts going on in the stretch of water we were near, large tour boats coming in so passengers could swim, big inflatable sofas being pulled behind massive speedboats, and one kindly sailing salesman who told us to drop anchor and he’d take us to his floating restaurant. Having been so prepared as to have taken a picnic, we stuck to our plans.
Sailing is so much fun (if you can call powering around bays with more horses than should be let loose a small vessel ‘sailing’), Andrew is almost convinced by the whole bit blue wobbly thing.
6 hours later we were back on dry land. Drove around the infamous Blue Lagoon and took some pictures. It’s now completely surrounded by hotels and there’s a fee to enter; however we decided against going since the small bays we’d discovered for ourselves were far better and we didn’t have 600 people swamping us.
Back home now and showered off all the salt! Looking rather pink…
Off to a self-service BBQ for tea tonight, lets hope they don’t throw us on…... Hoping to have a gentle evening to prepare ourselves for our last day tomorrow (sob), where we intend to relax in a Turkish spa (for at least some of the day).
Currently online in the Morning Star looking for places to stay in Greece (on route to Igouminetsa) as well as two nights in Rome for the route home. Any suggestions welcome.
By the way, thanks heaps everyone for the comments. We’re so clued in that we forgot to look at them until this morning! Still, very appreciated, although information regarding such things as ‘green cards’ would’ve been useful BEFORE we left!
El, sorry wrong Tom, but nice, though predictable (for you) answer.
Steve, as always thanks for the enlightenment regarding Mr Cruise, but also wrong.
Kate has it right (well done, ;-)), but blagged the answer off her dad, and anyway probably can’t work out this blog malarkey anyway!
Please try again, and anyone else reading, please feel free to comment on the blog (just hit the ‘comment’ button, although if you’re in Turkey at present it’ll say something like Yeni Gönderi), by way of incentive we’ve extended our generous ‘pencil’ gifts to include all who comment.
Have a great evening all…….
Andrew and Sam!
Ended up having only 2 hours sleep. Now we know what most of you are thinking… no we weren’t singing until the early hours, we went home just before closing time (and before we got kicked out, but we did own that dance floor…!) and we talked until the morning call to prayers! We can’t believe we haven’t commented on the Muslim call to prayers before! They’re as regular as clockwork (they probably are clockwork) and about as often as 6 times a day. A voice usually starts by saying a one-liner (the call we presume), then there’s a short crackle, a tape evidently is turned on and some strange warbling singing noise vaguely sounding like Elsie (those at Ealing will understand) chants something we have no idea about. All very entertaining until you realise you’ve been up yakking until 5:20am!
Today then, a big day (for Sam, yes he’s the boat lover). Nipped to the shops to get foods for a picnic, then headed to the beach to collect ‘our’ boat. Soon we were captain and first mate in charge of a 75bhp cruise liner!! What a fantastic way to see the coast line!!! The water was beautifully clean and clear enough to see the sea bed through! It was the warmest sea either of us had ever been in, we have no idea what temperature it was, but after a 2 minute deliberation we’ve come to the conclusion it must’ve been around air temperature (31C today) as we didn’t feel the slightest bit different after jumping overboard, apart from wet of course.
We sailed around all the coastline that we had enough fuel for, and stopped in at every cove. We must’ve anchored around 8 times. We were repeatedly stopped by a passing ice-cream vendor on a little boat, amazing, we promised we’d buy one at lunch time. It seemed his job was two-fold; to aid broken down boats and to sell everyone else an ice-cream, “to his members he was the 4th and 5th emergency services”! There was all sorts going on in the stretch of water we were near, large tour boats coming in so passengers could swim, big inflatable sofas being pulled behind massive speedboats, and one kindly sailing salesman who told us to drop anchor and he’d take us to his floating restaurant. Having been so prepared as to have taken a picnic, we stuck to our plans.
Sailing is so much fun (if you can call powering around bays with more horses than should be let loose a small vessel ‘sailing’), Andrew is almost convinced by the whole bit blue wobbly thing.
6 hours later we were back on dry land. Drove around the infamous Blue Lagoon and took some pictures. It’s now completely surrounded by hotels and there’s a fee to enter; however we decided against going since the small bays we’d discovered for ourselves were far better and we didn’t have 600 people swamping us.
Back home now and showered off all the salt! Looking rather pink…
Off to a self-service BBQ for tea tonight, lets hope they don’t throw us on…... Hoping to have a gentle evening to prepare ourselves for our last day tomorrow (sob), where we intend to relax in a Turkish spa (for at least some of the day).
Currently online in the Morning Star looking for places to stay in Greece (on route to Igouminetsa) as well as two nights in Rome for the route home. Any suggestions welcome.
By the way, thanks heaps everyone for the comments. We’re so clued in that we forgot to look at them until this morning! Still, very appreciated, although information regarding such things as ‘green cards’ would’ve been useful BEFORE we left!
El, sorry wrong Tom, but nice, though predictable (for you) answer.
Steve, as always thanks for the enlightenment regarding Mr Cruise, but also wrong.
Kate has it right (well done, ;-)), but blagged the answer off her dad, and anyway probably can’t work out this blog malarkey anyway!
Please try again, and anyone else reading, please feel free to comment on the blog (just hit the ‘comment’ button, although if you’re in Turkey at present it’ll say something like Yeni Gönderi), by way of incentive we’ve extended our generous ‘pencil’ gifts to include all who comment.
Have a great evening all…….
Andrew and Sam!
Pictures!
Up early as lots to do before a big boating bananza!
Thought we'd post yesterday's blog and some pics so far
London-Turkey: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=12232&l=1939f&id=511738288
Turkey - Mon-Wed: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=12235&l=b3ced&id=511738288
Turkey - Midway point: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=12236&l=c57c5&id=511738288
Enjoy!
Thought we'd post yesterday's blog and some pics so far
London-Turkey: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=12232&l=1939f&id=511738288
Turkey - Mon-Wed: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=12235&l=b3ced&id=511738288
Turkey - Midway point: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=12236&l=c57c5&id=511738288
Enjoy!
Wednesday 19th September
Awoke early this morning. Feeling fresh and fully fever free. Decided to head for Ephesus after a light breakfast (a banana!). Drive was great; light traffic and lovely scenery. Andy having drove all the way from Istanbul, it dawned on us that perhaps since only Sam’s passport was stamped maybe only he should drive ?? so he was chauffeur for the day… promoted from co-driver to captain temporarily.
Arrived at Ephesus without hitch (we just followed the trains of tourist coaches). A kindly leather factory outlet sales man successfully persuaded to take his free ‘bus’ to the entrance of the archaeological site via his factory outlet, however after a few minutes of his bus not turning up he got some random dude with his own car to take us. Having said that, we’ve realised there are so many ‘random’ people standing around doing apparently nothing that perhaps they aren’t so random after all! Leather shop was … erm … interesting. Smelled of cows, surely that’s against Muslim religion? Thought we’d found the place for all our souvenir presents, but having looked at the price tags we decided pencils all round it was!
Ephesus itself was pretty interesting. Two amphitheatres (which apparently translates to “anti-theatres” … obviously the Turks didn’t think they were that theatrical), a temple (Artemis’?), and amazing courts, roadways with sheltered walk ways, fountains and shops … a proper shopping centre basically!
We’d seen brochures for something touristy at Pammukale also, so we thought we’d head there next. Two and a half hours later and a stop at a very classy restaurant (Mc Donalds’) and we were passing Laodikeia (Laodicea), we saved that for the route home and headed for Pammukale which turned out to be a pretty amazing calcium deposit flowing down the hillside. For the geeks out there here’s the chemical formula: Ca (HCO3)>> CaCO3 + CO2+H2O
Fascinating!
We paddled in the streams of this water which apparently have ‘healing powers’ for man and beast, we were sold! ... as we’re both dating medical girls at the moment we thought this was something that they’d be greatly interested in as surely it’d make their jobs easier.. therefore we bought them a bottle each home as substitute souvenir presents (sorry, no pencils for you).
Saw another anti-theatre, another gate, fountain and temple and weird tourists clinging to ropes in still water (why?), maybe it was to cool off; we chose a ice lolly and left.
Stopped in at Laodikeia and had a good look around the archaeological dig. Two huge amphitheatres next to each other, and a very impressive market place … an ancient Camden Town.
We’d always heard that the Loadiceans were a tad ‘lukewarm’, however when we arrived our car thermometer was registering 35C, so we think they were doing better… our arrival obviously bumped them up a spiritual knot or two.
Saw signs to Colossie as we left so by-passed it on our way home… another archaeological dig site.
On route home now to find a cool beer and perhaps the cocktail bar from Sunday night. It’s 7pm and still 28C! Got Wicked playing as two days without a car journey gave us withdrawal symptoms.
Well its now 20.30 and we are about 15kms from home, we should have time for a shower, and some cocktails even if we have to skip dinner (eating is cheating, those that know, will know what I mean)!! We have had a pretty great day and seen such a lot, we’ve done 480 miles, (more than day 2, but no car towing today)! This is about 9 hours of driving at an averages speed of 54mph and a fuel economy of 47.6 mpg!!
This tank of fuel has so far done 640 miles and has only just buzzed to say it needs more drink, so prob about another 40 miles to go!! What is going on?? I think we need to go back to that service station again……….!!!!
We’ll update you all on this evenings fun and frolics on tomorrows blog, get excited everyone we are on the boat…….!!!
Weather up date ever at 20.30 its still 26.5 C
Andrew and Sam
(we are writing as one so you have to work out for yourself which I is writing what……)
Arrived at Ephesus without hitch (we just followed the trains of tourist coaches). A kindly leather factory outlet sales man successfully persuaded to take his free ‘bus’ to the entrance of the archaeological site via his factory outlet, however after a few minutes of his bus not turning up he got some random dude with his own car to take us. Having said that, we’ve realised there are so many ‘random’ people standing around doing apparently nothing that perhaps they aren’t so random after all! Leather shop was … erm … interesting. Smelled of cows, surely that’s against Muslim religion? Thought we’d found the place for all our souvenir presents, but having looked at the price tags we decided pencils all round it was!
Ephesus itself was pretty interesting. Two amphitheatres (which apparently translates to “anti-theatres” … obviously the Turks didn’t think they were that theatrical), a temple (Artemis’?), and amazing courts, roadways with sheltered walk ways, fountains and shops … a proper shopping centre basically!
We’d seen brochures for something touristy at Pammukale also, so we thought we’d head there next. Two and a half hours later and a stop at a very classy restaurant (Mc Donalds’) and we were passing Laodikeia (Laodicea), we saved that for the route home and headed for Pammukale which turned out to be a pretty amazing calcium deposit flowing down the hillside. For the geeks out there here’s the chemical formula: Ca (HCO3)>> CaCO3 + CO2+H2O
Fascinating!
We paddled in the streams of this water which apparently have ‘healing powers’ for man and beast, we were sold! ... as we’re both dating medical girls at the moment we thought this was something that they’d be greatly interested in as surely it’d make their jobs easier.. therefore we bought them a bottle each home as substitute souvenir presents (sorry, no pencils for you).
Saw another anti-theatre, another gate, fountain and temple and weird tourists clinging to ropes in still water (why?), maybe it was to cool off; we chose a ice lolly and left.
Stopped in at Laodikeia and had a good look around the archaeological dig. Two huge amphitheatres next to each other, and a very impressive market place … an ancient Camden Town.
We’d always heard that the Loadiceans were a tad ‘lukewarm’, however when we arrived our car thermometer was registering 35C, so we think they were doing better… our arrival obviously bumped them up a spiritual knot or two.
Saw signs to Colossie as we left so by-passed it on our way home… another archaeological dig site.
On route home now to find a cool beer and perhaps the cocktail bar from Sunday night. It’s 7pm and still 28C! Got Wicked playing as two days without a car journey gave us withdrawal symptoms.
Well its now 20.30 and we are about 15kms from home, we should have time for a shower, and some cocktails even if we have to skip dinner (eating is cheating, those that know, will know what I mean)!! We have had a pretty great day and seen such a lot, we’ve done 480 miles, (more than day 2, but no car towing today)! This is about 9 hours of driving at an averages speed of 54mph and a fuel economy of 47.6 mpg!!
This tank of fuel has so far done 640 miles and has only just buzzed to say it needs more drink, so prob about another 40 miles to go!! What is going on?? I think we need to go back to that service station again……….!!!!
We’ll update you all on this evenings fun and frolics on tomorrows blog, get excited everyone we are on the boat…….!!!
Weather up date ever at 20.30 its still 26.5 C
Andrew and Sam
(we are writing as one so you have to work out for yourself which I is writing what……)
Day 7 – Tuesday 18th of Sept.
Today started off with promise but went down hill rapidly. After a long sleep we got up, swam and ran as normal and then lounged by the pool with our books until lunchtime!!!! Energy levels must have been exhausted rapidly…..
Lunch was at home today and was followed by a few episodes of scrubs indoors to avoid the scorching mid afternoon Sun. Its about 32 degrees with no cloud and no breeze so a few hours indoors was just what was needed.
We ventured out to Olideniz this afternoon in the car, poor baby is being parked on the dusty lane behind the apartments and is looking so grubby, I guess there is no point cleaning her though as we have a 2,500 mile trip home next week so it will only get dirty again. I reckon I am due a trip to Wales when I get back as mum and dad’s drive seems to be magic ‘cos the car is always clean after a night parked on it……
Anyway back to reality (I’m sure there is a song lyric in there somewhere??) Olideniz is the most beautiful scenery we have seen, beautiful bay surrounded by tree covered cliffs, its picture post card stuff even if the town itself if the chav holiday makers Mecca! More beer guts on display than an episode of little Britain, but still we remembered to take the camera so have some pictures this time!! (of the scenery not the beer gusts, just for clarity, but knowing some of you lot you would appreciate pics of the latter just for the comedy of the whole thing!)
There was the most amazing boat out in the bay, we could not get close enough to see if it was a sun seeker or not but to the “trained” eye I would say that it was! It had 3 decks and the last time I saw one like that it was under security protection at the London boat show!! Must have been about £10 millions worth!!! However, the mission into Olideniz was not to look at others on their little boats, it was to hire us one of own…… which you’ll be please to know we did, I wont give too many details away you’ll have to wait for Thursdays post to see how we got on!!
We got back to the apartment late afternoon, just in time for a lounge by and another dip in the pool before we began to plan this evenings escapades!
Andy’s not feeling too well this evening so we’re having an escapade-free evening. We’re planning to go to Ephesus tomorrow so an early night will be good!
Lunch was at home today and was followed by a few episodes of scrubs indoors to avoid the scorching mid afternoon Sun. Its about 32 degrees with no cloud and no breeze so a few hours indoors was just what was needed.
We ventured out to Olideniz this afternoon in the car, poor baby is being parked on the dusty lane behind the apartments and is looking so grubby, I guess there is no point cleaning her though as we have a 2,500 mile trip home next week so it will only get dirty again. I reckon I am due a trip to Wales when I get back as mum and dad’s drive seems to be magic ‘cos the car is always clean after a night parked on it……
Anyway back to reality (I’m sure there is a song lyric in there somewhere??) Olideniz is the most beautiful scenery we have seen, beautiful bay surrounded by tree covered cliffs, its picture post card stuff even if the town itself if the chav holiday makers Mecca! More beer guts on display than an episode of little Britain, but still we remembered to take the camera so have some pictures this time!! (of the scenery not the beer gusts, just for clarity, but knowing some of you lot you would appreciate pics of the latter just for the comedy of the whole thing!)
There was the most amazing boat out in the bay, we could not get close enough to see if it was a sun seeker or not but to the “trained” eye I would say that it was! It had 3 decks and the last time I saw one like that it was under security protection at the London boat show!! Must have been about £10 millions worth!!! However, the mission into Olideniz was not to look at others on their little boats, it was to hire us one of own…… which you’ll be please to know we did, I wont give too many details away you’ll have to wait for Thursdays post to see how we got on!!
We got back to the apartment late afternoon, just in time for a lounge by and another dip in the pool before we began to plan this evenings escapades!
Andy’s not feeling too well this evening so we’re having an escapade-free evening. We’re planning to go to Ephesus tomorrow so an early night will be good!
Day 6 - Monday, 17th Spetember 2007
Today started a little later than the previous 5. We did find somewhere for dinner last night, however it was after we had found a cocktail bar!!!!! Dinner was pretty cool, accompanied by a nice bottle of local wine! The night was still young so we found a nice little place for a night cap before walking home! (those who had a phone call from us whilst we walked back will know the fuller story!!)
One funny incident occurred when we both managed to fall down the same hole (one of us was pushed but we wont divulge too many details……), in the garden on the way back to the apartment!! We had mud up to our knees and left a footprint trail across the path, good job its sunny here and it had all dried up by the morning!
So after a nice lie in, today got off to a relaxing start. We had breakfast in the sun on the balcony then went and had a Turkish shave, (Just to claify things, this is just a facial shave, we didn’t go Brazilian, ouch!!!!) thus allowing us to absorb some of the local culture!!
We then went into town a see about hiring a boat before having lunch at Sarah’s, this cool lady who has moved from the UK to run the ‘coffee pot’ just down the road from the apartment. Her husband is Turkish and so we showed him our route on the map and some of the pictures we had taken on the way, it turns out he went to Uni. in one the towns we passed through so gave us some tips for our return journey!!
It was then back to the apartment and another 100 lengths of the pool and a rest in the sun over a few chapters of our books before we went into Fethiye for dinner! We caught the bus, or dolmus as they are known which was an experience. Now, busses are not normally my thing but this is like a posh mini bus with an automatic sliding door that the driver thinks is the tardis and drives like a go cart up and down the steep winding roads.
Fethiye has an amazing harbour, there is so many boats, as you all know I am a bit of a boat fan so we walked around some of the pontoons and dreamt of how are millions would be spent (if we had them!!) There is every kind of boat imaginable from small fishing boats to massive tour boats and sailing ships, as the sun was setting it looked so picturesque…….
Dinner was in the fish market, which is surrounded by places that will cook the fish that you have brought from the market, we both had a huge Tuna steak with salads and bread….. not too shabby!!
A short bust ride back to the apartment and its goodnight from us!
Sleep well!!
One funny incident occurred when we both managed to fall down the same hole (one of us was pushed but we wont divulge too many details……), in the garden on the way back to the apartment!! We had mud up to our knees and left a footprint trail across the path, good job its sunny here and it had all dried up by the morning!
So after a nice lie in, today got off to a relaxing start. We had breakfast in the sun on the balcony then went and had a Turkish shave, (Just to claify things, this is just a facial shave, we didn’t go Brazilian, ouch!!!!) thus allowing us to absorb some of the local culture!!
We then went into town a see about hiring a boat before having lunch at Sarah’s, this cool lady who has moved from the UK to run the ‘coffee pot’ just down the road from the apartment. Her husband is Turkish and so we showed him our route on the map and some of the pictures we had taken on the way, it turns out he went to Uni. in one the towns we passed through so gave us some tips for our return journey!!
It was then back to the apartment and another 100 lengths of the pool and a rest in the sun over a few chapters of our books before we went into Fethiye for dinner! We caught the bus, or dolmus as they are known which was an experience. Now, busses are not normally my thing but this is like a posh mini bus with an automatic sliding door that the driver thinks is the tardis and drives like a go cart up and down the steep winding roads.
Fethiye has an amazing harbour, there is so many boats, as you all know I am a bit of a boat fan so we walked around some of the pontoons and dreamt of how are millions would be spent (if we had them!!) There is every kind of boat imaginable from small fishing boats to massive tour boats and sailing ships, as the sun was setting it looked so picturesque…….
Dinner was in the fish market, which is surrounded by places that will cook the fish that you have brought from the market, we both had a huge Tuna steak with salads and bread….. not too shabby!!
A short bust ride back to the apartment and its goodnight from us!
Sleep well!!
Day 5 - Sunday 16th September
Sunday, the day of rest … sure has been! Although after 4 days in a car we thought we needed some exercise. A 7am morning run into Hisoranu and back felt great. Then a walk to our nearest shop for breakfast before lounging by the pool.
Having been driving so much lately we were feeling car-sick not going anywhere so thought we’d explore a bit. Oludeniz is the nearest beach town; a steep descent to sea level made us realise just how high up we are. We passed the famous Blue Lagoon but left visiting it to another day. Some fabulous views; we’ll take the camera next time!
Did some serious shopping on the way back (since we had the car).. stocked up for the week.
Back at the apartment now, and just swum 100 lengths of the pool. Feeling much better for some exercise.
Off out into in Hisoranu for some dinner will let you know how we get on tomorrow!!
Having been driving so much lately we were feeling car-sick not going anywhere so thought we’d explore a bit. Oludeniz is the nearest beach town; a steep descent to sea level made us realise just how high up we are. We passed the famous Blue Lagoon but left visiting it to another day. Some fabulous views; we’ll take the camera next time!
Did some serious shopping on the way back (since we had the car).. stocked up for the week.
Back at the apartment now, and just swum 100 lengths of the pool. Feeling much better for some exercise.
Off out into in Hisoranu for some dinner will let you know how we get on tomorrow!!
Day 4 – Saturday 15th September 2007
Awoke to views of Istanbul from above! Our 5th floor hotel room had a balcony with towering views over one of the busiest side streets in the city.
Resisted the temptation to have the typical Turkish breakfast (prunes and apricots) and had mixed breads with honey or cheese. With around 500miles still to go keeping roughage levels down seemed sensible.
Driving out of Istanbul we realised its enormity; a sprawling city of millions with incredibly disparate architecture. But beautiful all the same. Masses upon masses of housing just outside the centre’s hotel and casino area, then outside the residential area acres of industry. Factories and storehouses for over 20miles outside the city’s ringroad, and even after that the industry didn’t seem to ever stop. We drove 100 miles on good motorways before making the right hand turn south and heading on more minor roads for our destination Ovacik (near Fethiye), some 430miles.
The route started off very slow; single carriage way winding through mountains. Lots of lorries and crazy Turkish drivers overtaking on blind corners… Andy was at home!
The roads got better after the first 100miles through mountains and became either very wide single carriage ways or dual carriageways. Masses of road construction and quarrying going on. Hundreds of miles of it! The funniest part had to be where they had dumped chippings for about 2 kms on one side of the road, but not bothered putting up any signage to warn you. So when a truck came the other way you just had to drive off the road! Will attach picture to demonstrate!
Ascending into the mountains we think we worked out what all the quarrying was for… a huge Portland Porcelain factory! And the more we looked the more we saw. The scenery was quite spectacular, a mix of wild scrubland and farmed fields, but amid the huge mountains were miles of perfectly flat prairies … which made driving so much fun! The final 100mile leg was amazing, pretty much all downhill (with a couple of mountain ranges to pass over) but really tested Andy’s driving skills and Sam’s nerves … and put the Bora to the limit a couple of times. Fun fun fun. Poor car sounded a bit like a tractor at the end, rattles accumulating.
Arrived at Fethiye – 2466miles completed in 41hours 46min driving, averaging 59mph and 47.4mpg, zero arguments, and only 3 listens to the Wicked soundtrack!
Sam managed to navigate us to the apartment perfectly whilst on the phone to Paul who was on route to his wedding! I think he wanted reassurance, but instead he got one frantic Sam. Congratulations Paul, hope all went well and that you’re now ‘relaxing’ somewhere sunny :)
Resisted the temptation to have the typical Turkish breakfast (prunes and apricots) and had mixed breads with honey or cheese. With around 500miles still to go keeping roughage levels down seemed sensible.
Driving out of Istanbul we realised its enormity; a sprawling city of millions with incredibly disparate architecture. But beautiful all the same. Masses upon masses of housing just outside the centre’s hotel and casino area, then outside the residential area acres of industry. Factories and storehouses for over 20miles outside the city’s ringroad, and even after that the industry didn’t seem to ever stop. We drove 100 miles on good motorways before making the right hand turn south and heading on more minor roads for our destination Ovacik (near Fethiye), some 430miles.
The route started off very slow; single carriage way winding through mountains. Lots of lorries and crazy Turkish drivers overtaking on blind corners… Andy was at home!
The roads got better after the first 100miles through mountains and became either very wide single carriage ways or dual carriageways. Masses of road construction and quarrying going on. Hundreds of miles of it! The funniest part had to be where they had dumped chippings for about 2 kms on one side of the road, but not bothered putting up any signage to warn you. So when a truck came the other way you just had to drive off the road! Will attach picture to demonstrate!
Ascending into the mountains we think we worked out what all the quarrying was for… a huge Portland Porcelain factory! And the more we looked the more we saw. The scenery was quite spectacular, a mix of wild scrubland and farmed fields, but amid the huge mountains were miles of perfectly flat prairies … which made driving so much fun! The final 100mile leg was amazing, pretty much all downhill (with a couple of mountain ranges to pass over) but really tested Andy’s driving skills and Sam’s nerves … and put the Bora to the limit a couple of times. Fun fun fun. Poor car sounded a bit like a tractor at the end, rattles accumulating.
Arrived at Fethiye – 2466miles completed in 41hours 46min driving, averaging 59mph and 47.4mpg, zero arguments, and only 3 listens to the Wicked soundtrack!
Sam managed to navigate us to the apartment perfectly whilst on the phone to Paul who was on route to his wedding! I think he wanted reassurance, but instead he got one frantic Sam. Congratulations Paul, hope all went well and that you’re now ‘relaxing’ somewhere sunny :)
Day 3 – Friday 14th September 2007
Budapest last night was lovely! Dinner was great - raw (not rare) steak on a hot stone to cook to our liking was fantastic! Slept well until 5am when we awoke to our alarms and here started the third day. With over a thousand miles to cover today and not really knowing what the roads would be like we thought we’d better get a head start, which annoyingly meant we missed our free breakfast!
The journey out of Budapest to the Serbian border was great. Long, straight, well maintained roads with hardly a car on them. Then again it was 5:30am! 100miles later we were at the Serbian border thinking it would be nice and easy. Not the case… apparently we needed a ‘green card’ … how does one obtain said card? Who knows!? We worked it out eventually, however not having the car registration documents seemed a slight issue (though writing the vehicle registration and make and model on a post-it seemed to do the trick! … oh, and the 125e fee!)
Roads in Serbia were fine mostly. Great motorways, tolled, and lovely scenery. It was fortunate that we had some left-over euros from the taxi yesterday to pay the tolls. Maintained our average speed of 71mph and reached the Bulgarian border having done 443 miles fuelled on simply diesel and crisps and water. Entering Bulgaria (an EU country!) should’ve been much easier, also not the case. Firstly we needed the underside of our car disinfected .. simple huh? Well, it was in that the cost was 2e and that was exactly what we had left, however throwing the coin at a very short-tempered Bulgarian wasn’t clever. A telling off later and we were at border control. Again we needed a green card … and again they wanted registration documents … this time no post-its! Sam’s log book with chassis number seemed to be ok though… 15e this time, and we were off.
Bulgaria was uneventful and rather drab. Sam’s idea of a shabby looking place was Hackney until we drove around Sofia! (picture to be uploaded will explain). Exiting Bulgaria into Turkey took almost 2 hours; after 13 hours together in the car this wasn’t fun! First of all we’d recently refuelled only to be told they don’t take credit cards. To the Bulgarians amusement Andy tipped him some fresh sterling notes (thank goodness for the British classy Royal Mint), we were on the road again but out of cash. This meant buying our visas at passport control proved rather difficult … cash machines obviously in short supply, though we did find one eventually. Next we had to get another green card for the car, which we worked out was an insurance thing! Still rather baffled… After several rubber stamps, computer logging, and a suspicious look in our boot, we got the all clear! Woo, hello Turkey!
Driving in the dark at present, heading for Istanbul, at 6:50pm. Only 130miles to go, making our total for the day ~ 820miles (considerably less than the original route… we saved ourselves around 180miles by going through Serbia, which wasn’t much different from Romania in my recollection).
Found hotel eventually … another gorgeous city! Exhausted we dragged ourselves out for an evening meal and got back to the hotel at midnight (another time zone difference cheated us of another hour!). A long day…
The journey out of Budapest to the Serbian border was great. Long, straight, well maintained roads with hardly a car on them. Then again it was 5:30am! 100miles later we were at the Serbian border thinking it would be nice and easy. Not the case… apparently we needed a ‘green card’ … how does one obtain said card? Who knows!? We worked it out eventually, however not having the car registration documents seemed a slight issue (though writing the vehicle registration and make and model on a post-it seemed to do the trick! … oh, and the 125e fee!)
Roads in Serbia were fine mostly. Great motorways, tolled, and lovely scenery. It was fortunate that we had some left-over euros from the taxi yesterday to pay the tolls. Maintained our average speed of 71mph and reached the Bulgarian border having done 443 miles fuelled on simply diesel and crisps and water. Entering Bulgaria (an EU country!) should’ve been much easier, also not the case. Firstly we needed the underside of our car disinfected .. simple huh? Well, it was in that the cost was 2e and that was exactly what we had left, however throwing the coin at a very short-tempered Bulgarian wasn’t clever. A telling off later and we were at border control. Again we needed a green card … and again they wanted registration documents … this time no post-its! Sam’s log book with chassis number seemed to be ok though… 15e this time, and we were off.
Bulgaria was uneventful and rather drab. Sam’s idea of a shabby looking place was Hackney until we drove around Sofia! (picture to be uploaded will explain). Exiting Bulgaria into Turkey took almost 2 hours; after 13 hours together in the car this wasn’t fun! First of all we’d recently refuelled only to be told they don’t take credit cards. To the Bulgarians amusement Andy tipped him some fresh sterling notes (thank goodness for the British classy Royal Mint), we were on the road again but out of cash. This meant buying our visas at passport control proved rather difficult … cash machines obviously in short supply, though we did find one eventually. Next we had to get another green card for the car, which we worked out was an insurance thing! Still rather baffled… After several rubber stamps, computer logging, and a suspicious look in our boot, we got the all clear! Woo, hello Turkey!
Driving in the dark at present, heading for Istanbul, at 6:50pm. Only 130miles to go, making our total for the day ~ 820miles (considerably less than the original route… we saved ourselves around 180miles by going through Serbia, which wasn’t much different from Romania in my recollection).
Found hotel eventually … another gorgeous city! Exhausted we dragged ourselves out for an evening meal and got back to the hotel at midnight (another time zone difference cheated us of another hour!). A long day…
Thursday, 13 September 2007
Day 2 – Thursday 13th September 2007
Today started well with a great breakfast at the hotel,(continental today so much healthier than yesterdays fry up!!) we arrived late last night in the dark so it was surprising to see such amazing views of the Alps surrounding us when we got up today.
We drove through the south of Germany towards the Austrian border with the mountains just to our south, some of them were snow capped and looked fantastic! Crossing the border was as uneventful as all the others, I don’t know why spies like James, Jason and Tom (now there’s a challenge, first 2 are easy who’s the third??) have so much trouble with it! The roads in Austria are not so good and the mountains have gone as we head a bit north to cross the country!
Andy won’t let me listen to wicked today, I am allowed ‘selected songs’…….. WHATEVER, if you can’t listen to the whole thing there is no point!!
Erm … day’s taken an eventful turn. Hilarious time in Vienna. Beautiful city, lovely architecture, enjoyed a fabulous cheese and ham toastie in the plaza. On the road again heading for Budapest. Oh, slight delay due to cunningly arranging for the police to tow car out of disabled parking bay and deposit in impound for us … parking’s such a chore on the continent!
Arrived finally at Budapest. Hotel room is hilarious. Its an apartment with a mezzanine second bedroom, fully equipped kitchen and 2 lounges.
Having a nightmare with electricals today (laptop wont connect to the wireless internet and this kezboard is a pain … the kezs are in zer wong plöce)
Off out for some tea now before an early night and our 1000 miles tomorrow from Budapest to Istanbul.
Over and out
We drove through the south of Germany towards the Austrian border with the mountains just to our south, some of them were snow capped and looked fantastic! Crossing the border was as uneventful as all the others, I don’t know why spies like James, Jason and Tom (now there’s a challenge, first 2 are easy who’s the third??) have so much trouble with it! The roads in Austria are not so good and the mountains have gone as we head a bit north to cross the country!
Andy won’t let me listen to wicked today, I am allowed ‘selected songs’…….. WHATEVER, if you can’t listen to the whole thing there is no point!!
Erm … day’s taken an eventful turn. Hilarious time in Vienna. Beautiful city, lovely architecture, enjoyed a fabulous cheese and ham toastie in the plaza. On the road again heading for Budapest. Oh, slight delay due to cunningly arranging for the police to tow car out of disabled parking bay and deposit in impound for us … parking’s such a chore on the continent!
Arrived finally at Budapest. Hotel room is hilarious. Its an apartment with a mezzanine second bedroom, fully equipped kitchen and 2 lounges.
Having a nightmare with electricals today (laptop wont connect to the wireless internet and this kezboard is a pain … the kezs are in zer wong plöce)
Off out for some tea now before an early night and our 1000 miles tomorrow from Budapest to Istanbul.
Over and out
Day 1 – Wednesday September 12th 2007
Well, here we go off on our big adventure and what a great start, we had to leave London at 6am, and at 6.01 am we departed, all the planning, organisation and focus had paid off, we were off……. We had a great drive down to Dover, made it in about an hour and a half, averaging abut 81 mph…… One small hitch, we had not planned to be at the ferry terminal 45 mins before, of course we knew we had to be, but hadn’t planned to be, so we missed the ferry we were booked on as we only got there 10 mins before sailing…… Oh well, apparently there is more that one ferry a day so we managed to get the next one, an hour later!!!
Crossing went off without incident, yummy breakfast, lots of coffee and a nice sea view!!!
So, we landed on the continent like proper British travellers with nothing more that a passport and a credit card….. Setting up all the new gadgets was fun….. I now know how Paul feels on our road trips, sat with the laptop DJ’ing (i.e. playing the wicked sound track), via an FM transmitter, keeping taps of progress on auto route, uploading from memory sticks……. ahh happy days!!
German motorways are brilliant, there is no speed limits on big chunks of them, Andrew is driving as I am typing this, its quite tricky as he thinks he is a cross between a F1 driver and a go cart racer….. apparently no one else on the road knows how to drive!!!
And then there was traffic jams, its 4.30 our time and the traffic around Frankfurt is a little ‘heavy’!! We are down to 20 mph and lost 2mph off the average all because some silly German decided to break down!! How selfish!! Not that bad though because we were under the fight path of the airport and so got to watch the planes land!
Well, we finally got to the hotel, what a quaint little place, just south of Munich, the old dear on reception was waiting for us, we were the last to check in at abut 9.00pm. she also doubled as the waitress in the restaurant, kindly she brought us the English menu, but then unfortunately would not let us order anything other than her recommendation which actually turned out to be quite good! (Shane would have been right at home, waitress recommendation ruled supreme).
Its now 23.12, and we have retire to our lush room, (split level, with bedroom area, living room bit and dressing room bit with a cool bathroom), with a bottle of red!
Sleep well……
Countries passed through today England, France, Belgium, Netherlands and Germany!
Distance travelled 10hr 8min – 715miles
Average Speed 69mph
MPG = 45.9
Top speed = 129mph (silly diesel!)
Crossing went off without incident, yummy breakfast, lots of coffee and a nice sea view!!!
So, we landed on the continent like proper British travellers with nothing more that a passport and a credit card….. Setting up all the new gadgets was fun….. I now know how Paul feels on our road trips, sat with the laptop DJ’ing (i.e. playing the wicked sound track), via an FM transmitter, keeping taps of progress on auto route, uploading from memory sticks……. ahh happy days!!
German motorways are brilliant, there is no speed limits on big chunks of them, Andrew is driving as I am typing this, its quite tricky as he thinks he is a cross between a F1 driver and a go cart racer….. apparently no one else on the road knows how to drive!!!
And then there was traffic jams, its 4.30 our time and the traffic around Frankfurt is a little ‘heavy’!! We are down to 20 mph and lost 2mph off the average all because some silly German decided to break down!! How selfish!! Not that bad though because we were under the fight path of the airport and so got to watch the planes land!
Well, we finally got to the hotel, what a quaint little place, just south of Munich, the old dear on reception was waiting for us, we were the last to check in at abut 9.00pm. she also doubled as the waitress in the restaurant, kindly she brought us the English menu, but then unfortunately would not let us order anything other than her recommendation which actually turned out to be quite good! (Shane would have been right at home, waitress recommendation ruled supreme).
Its now 23.12, and we have retire to our lush room, (split level, with bedroom area, living room bit and dressing room bit with a cool bathroom), with a bottle of red!
Sleep well……
Countries passed through today England, France, Belgium, Netherlands and Germany!
Distance travelled 10hr 8min – 715miles
Average Speed 69mph
MPG = 45.9
Top speed = 129mph (silly diesel!)
Tuesday, 11 September 2007
Day -1
Last day of work! Horray!
Sun is shining here in Uxbridge, which is good as I have a mountain of washing to do and get dried before 5am tomorrow.
Yes, an early start tomorrow; eta to Calais is 11am (FR time). Then from there it's 600miles to Munich. From there we're heading to Budapest (580miles) then to Istanbul.
Istanbul to the south of Turkey will be the most interesting leg.
A week resting in the villa will be badly needed methinks! Then we're off to Igouminitsa (Greece) to catch the ferry to Bari (Italy). From there to Rome, then to Florence, through Switzerland and home via a couple of vineyards in France.
Here's a map:
Monday, 10 September 2007
Day -2 (and Counting)
Hello All, (testing, testing 1, 2, 3..........)
Only 2 days to go before we are off...... still a few last moment things to sort, like the route and where we are staying but we have the keys to the apartment now and a tent (thanks Steve) so things are looking up!
Sam
Only 2 days to go before we are off...... still a few last moment things to sort, like the route and where we are staying but we have the keys to the apartment now and a tent (thanks Steve) so things are looking up!
Sam
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