Day 1, Istanbul

Today we had a yummy breakfast on the roof terrace (enclosed) of the hotel - views of the Bosphorus Strait on one side, and city views on the other.  Food was yummy :-)

Then off to the Grand Bazaar we went -- uphill all the way!!  We bought a couple of cool t-shirts (yes, we are tourists) and a cute turtle family jewellery holder ...

Then off to the Spice Bazaar, where we were so sad that we couldn't buy any of the spices (because of Australian quarantine restrictions), but Craig did find some yummy Turkish Delight, and we bought a nice Turkish coffee set.  Had yummy doner kebabs for lunch.

Had a look at the Galata Bridge and it's many fish restaurants/cafes.

Then off up the hill to the Basilica Cistern which was totally awesome!  Check it out on Wiki.  Photos were almost impossible because it was so dark.

Then we headed back to the hotel, and walked past the Hagia Sophia, the Blue Mosque and the Hippodrome.  The Hippodrome had a couple of huge obelisks ... we wondered how they ever dragged them from Egypt to Istanbul in the 4th century!!!

Saw a lovely art studio on the way back to the hotel, and were hugely tempted ... but will think some more about whether we need more art for on the wall :-)

And then, of course, there was dinner:

Istanbul

Here we are, in lovely Istanbul.  At this hotel.

We will be here for a few days, probably 3 nights or maybe 4, giving us plenty of time to explore Istanbul.  The hotel is comfortable, the breakfast is  yummy and the Beast is parked in front of the door.

Some photos to compare Greece and Istanbul ...

Greece

Istanbul

(can't just flush TP down the toilet here!)

And our dinner from last night (well, the last part of it anyway):

Oh, and the Beast has now been "officially" exported from the EU.  It stopped being an EU resident when we crossed the border from Greece to Turkey, and when we import it to Australia (import permit already obtained), it will become an Australian resident.  For the time being, it is just like us - homeless!

Border crossing to Turkey

Well ... talk about a long drawn-out border crossing!

First was Greek border control - they wanted to see our passports and that was it.  Then it was over the long bridge to the Turkish side.  Well, what a comedy of disorganisation!

First up, passports:  no problem, we park the car and head over to the little hut to buy the visas, then back to passport control for a stamp.  Next, the car.  Okay, we have no insurance (which we were expecting) so it's park the car again, then walk back 150m to where we just were to buy insurance.  They could have mentioned the insurance office when they sent us off to buy visas.  So, this is done and we are officially in the country.

No, hang on, we're not done yet.  Now, it's customs.  We give them our passports, the car registration papers, and the newly purchased insurance certificate.  No worries, just drive over there and "my friend" will X-ray the car.  Over we go, only to be told to take the baggage out of the car.  Apparently Turkish X-ray machines cannot penetrate an entire car, and its contents, so we have to empty the car.  Those of you who have ever seen how much can fit into a Discovery which is loaded to the ceiling (literally) from behind the front seats to the back door will understand how unappealing the thought of emptying it all out is.

So, we empty the car, and Mirne stays with the "baggage" while Craig heads off to get it X-rayed.  No problem, except we have the tow-hitch (about 10kg of solid steel) stored immediately behind our seats on the floor.  Forgot to remove that, so it confused the X-ray operators.  They started pulling things out from this little storage area, but seemed satisfied that a small 1kg fire extinguisher could have caused what they saw.  Glad they're not diagnosing my broken limbs!

Then it's back over to the baggage, where Craig proceeds to re-pack the car in record time while Mirne takes the passport over for more stamps allowing us into Turkey.

All up we've been in the control of the Turks for about 90 minutes, but about 75 of those were spent standing around waiting for other people to work out when and what to do to us next!  All this time Mirne was either sitting in the car reading books on her Kindle, or standing outside in the freezing (literally) cold.  By the end of it, she had lost all feeling in her toes, fingers and ears.  Meanwhile, Craig was working up a sweat running around to various offices and unloading and reloading the car.

Oh well, in a few weeks we shall see how the Iranians compare....  Somehow, I expect they will be more organised, and based on previous experiences with Iranian officials they will certainly be more polite.  I still haven't worked out why Border Control officers in eastern European countries (and now Turkey) need to bark one- or two-word orders at you.  Surely it would make things go much better for them as well if they said "please" and "thank you" every now and then?

Things very quickly became quite foggy on the road, and after about 10 minutes we had a bit of reminder of driving standards:  first a traffic cone appeared on the side of the road, then another, then a jack-knifed truck, pointing the wrong way, and lying half on its side!  There was no-one present, everything looked quite abandoned, so we have no idea how long it had been like this.

We are now in a nice hotel in the town of Tekirdag.  Tomorrow it's on to Istanbul for a few days, then back down to the Dardenelles and the battlefields of Gallipoli....

Apologies to all for the lack of photos - we didn't take any today (much as we would have loved to at the border crossing, it didn't seem quite appropriate).

On to Turkey!

We spent last night and are spending tonight in Alexandroupoli, a town in Greece just before the Greece-Turkey border.  We needed to get a few things done (like wash a whole lot of clothes) before saying goodbye to Europe.

We didn't go to Philipi on our way here --- the weather was truly awful.  That rain has been following us for 2 weeks now.  On our way here to Alexandroupoli we saw snow!  Yes, the temperature was even below zero at one stage!  It seems winter is finally catching us.

Amazingly, we nearly managed to travel through the entire breadth of Greece without realising that there was actually a time change .... yes, eventually even we finally caught on to the 1 hour difference from the Netherlands!  Amazingly we did still get breakfast served at all those places where we thought it was 9 am when in fact it was 10 am!!!

Still desperately trying to wash the car, not to clean it, but to get some wax on it!!  All that rain, plus wading through muddy waters (oh, that's muddy roads) in Albania, got rid of every speck of wax on the Beast.  It would be nice to have a protective layer on that paint for all that dust and stuff to come ...

Next stop:  Istanbul.  We have no idea about WIFI availability in Turkey, so don't panic if you don't see a daily update here!!

... still in Greece

This morning we said goodbye to our lovely accommodation in Edessa.  But we saw it's famous waterfalls before we left.  They were totally amazing!!!  And because there's been so much rain, there was plenty of water.  Check out this site for more information: Edessa City Tourism.

From Edessa we headed towards Pella to view ancient ruins.  The museum was quite interesting, but the ruins were very disappointing.  Typically Greek actually.  The ruins are falling down!

We headed to Thessaloniki, intending to stay there for a night, see some sights, and exchange some currency.  However, neither of us liked the look of the big city, so we exchanged some currency and left!

We went further down the peninsula and are staying in a little town called Nea Moudania in a dodgy little pension, where the toilet leaks (clean water) when it's flushing ... what can I say?  It's Greece.

Tomorrow we'll head towards Kavala, and hopefully visit the ruins at Phillipi, before heading to Turkey.

Ancient sights in Greece

Well the sunshine stayed for a day ... then more rain :-(

The Royal Tombs at Vergina were amazing!  We very much enjoyed seeing the tombs and their contents on display in the World Heritage Listed Site at Vergina. Unfortunately, we could not take photos.

Craig took a photo of Peter IIs tomb - naughty!

We then jumped in the car and headed for Meteora, a site where monasteries were built on the top of great big rocks (truly HUGE) so as to ensure the safety of the monks from invading marauders!!

We found a campground which was open, and, which in true Greek style, said it had hot water, but in actual fact the best which could be said of the water whilst standing naked under it, was that it was not cold!  Never mind.  We passed a peaceful night in the roof-tent (or, rather I did -- Craig mentioned howling cats, barking dogs and loud passing trucks -- I heard none of it).  Fortunately our sleeping bags are rated to very very cold weather, because the night was super-cold, but we were snuggly warm.  We were reading our Kindles in and under the sleeping-bags to keep as much of the cold out!!

Next morning drove up into those giant rock formations to visit the monasteries which were open.  That was going to be 4 of the 6.  In fact, it was only 2 of the 6, and one had about a thousands steps up and down to get to the top, which we decided to miss in the interest of Craig's dodgy knee.   Fortunately, St Stefanus, the last one, was open and easily accessible.  It was quite stunning, it's location awesome, it's sacristry totally covered in the most beautiful paintings.

  Perched on a pillar of rock

 Photo of Mirne, just to prove she is here as well...

 Little herb garden on the side of the rock

 Saint Stefanos

 Garden planted by one of the nuns in memory of her father

 When they're closed, they want you to stay out!

After a satisfying morning viewing these most fabulous buildings in amazing places, we decided to head back up north to a town called Florina, which the LP had some good things to say about.  However, the LP failed, and the town looked totally unappealing to us, so we continued to Edessa, which is said to have beautiful waterfalls.

After walking around with our Gigi (that's our name for our Garmin SatNav) through the old quarter of Edessa, looking for our proposed accommodation, we eventually stumbled over it.  Varosi 4 Seasons guesthouse.  And it is fabulous!  Their website states that even the Greek government (who to my mind make many bad financial decisions) describes the building and the area in which it stands as an area of historic preservation ( see: www.varosi-hotel.com).

We dashed through the rain last night to get to a little taverna for some dinner -- which was heaven!!  Totally delicious meal, including drinks, for 20 euro!!!  Yay for cheap food!!

After making the most of the facilities here at the Varosi this morning (ie. the HOT water), we shall head off to look at the waterfalls, and then get back in the car and head off to Pella, the so-called birthplace of Alexander the Great.

Just a comment about the roads here in Greece.  The highways (which require a toll be paid) are fantastic, but practically no-one uses them -- probably because no-one wants to pay toll.  The other roads are not in as good condition, which is a shame.  However, it's a much greater shame that Greece spent (literally) billions of Euros on those bloody highways and tunnels, because those contributed to the huge debt which Greece owes to the EU banks.  It was similar in Spain -- fabulous highways around the country, and it seemed we were the only ones on them -- and the construction of them contributed millions (if not billions) to the Spanish debt.  I wonder how much those highways, tunnels, etc, were really needed????

(PS Some photos have been added to the previous post)

Onward to Greece...

Well, we didn’t have a walk around Dubrovnic because it was raining way too hard – we may well have drowned before we had walked 100m!  Instead we decided to continue driving towards the south and, hopefully, some sun.

Here are some photos we took of Dubrovnic as we left...

From Croatia we drove into Montenegro, where we had to buy car insurance at the border.  15 euros for 15 days, and we were in the country for less than 4 hours!  From there we went into Albania, where we were supposed to buy insurance at the border also, but they forgot to ask so we forgot to buy it.  Just as well we didn’t hit anyone! 

The overall impression of Albania was of serious poverty – this is not a first-world country, and if there was such a thing as second-world it might just scrape in.  We stayed in a clean and tidy, if not quiet, room above a restaurant above a petrol station along the side of one of the major highways.  It was cheap, and the food in the restaurant was of really good quality.  Driving away from the hotel we encountered a large traffic jam, and were at a loss to determine the reason.  Eventually we came to a railway line crossing the road on a 45 degree angle.  The road had worn away quite a lot on each side of each track, and cars were getting stuck and sliding sideways on the rails before finally gaining some form of traction and jumping over them.  The Beast, of course, just crossed over them as if there was nothing abnormal about it in any way.

Unfortunately we spent too many of our euros on the room and dinner, so when we got the border with the Former Yugoslavian Republic Of Macedonia (FYROM) we couldn’t actually enter the country.  We had to buy insurance at the border again, but this time the minimum cost was 50 euros.  We were planning on driving 126km in the country, a short-cut to Greece.  The credit card machine wasn’t working, and I only had 47 euros in cash in my wallet, so we weren’t allowed entry.  So, in the space of 30 minutes, we exited then re-entered Albania!  That’s going to look interesting on their computer system, haha.

We then drove on another major highway in Albania towards the Greek border.  This major highway, however, consisted mainly of large sections of dirt/gravel interspersed with seriously potholed bitumen.  We’ve driven smoother green-lanes in England and Wales.

We are now in Greece, at a small pension in Vergina, having driven here on wonderful smooth EU-funded highways with no other cars in sight.  Tomorrow we’re going to go look at the tomb of the father of Alexander the Great, Peter.  Then we’re off to Thessalonoki and more ancient sights.

The best thing?  Blue sky and sunshine.  Since entering Croatia, we have had terribly rainy weather … really, really bad.  Makes for awful driving.  But now, finally, we have sunshine J  Hope it stays.

Photos

Several of our followers have been complaining about the lack of photos.  We apologise for this, but the lack of a decent interweb connection is out of our hands.  Here we have a collection of photos from the last few blog entries.

Us living in, on and around the Beast:

Porec:

Pula:

Zadar:

Sibenik:

Split:

Finally, some photos of the Croatian coastline: