I’m writing this from the foothills of Mount Olympus in Greece. 18 days since the last blog post during which we’ve scooted down the Black Sea coast and in to Istanbul – the ultimate destination of our 2nd leg of the trip. We’re now recuperating in Greece for a month – and yes, it is as scrumptious as it sounds.
The 2nd leg of the trip – 58 days, 10 countries, and just over 6,000km.
Reaching the Black Sea was a mini-milestone. It represented the end of our route East as we looked out across the vast expanse of water towards Asia and forced us to take a southerly, traversing the coastline as far as we could until we had to divert inland in order to cross the Bulgarian/Turkish border. We paddled in the Black Sea. Freezing. Absolutely freezing. And a tiny bit grubby on the Romanian side. But Bulgaria – wow! What a surprise! From almost the moment we crossed over from Romania it became a heavily wooded; rolling hilled; azure watered beauty of a route. We stopped at Varna for a week and really really enjoyed it. The architecture – crumbling old buildings, ornate balconies, pastel colours – and the tree-lined streets and squares were a real contrast to Romania. The sea park between the town and the beach runs for over 3km and was the perfect place to test our new scooters. Yes, that’s right. The best thing about being away is you can do what makes you happy. We all have scooters now. I don’t think there’s an adult in the world who doesn’t smile when having a borrowed go on a kids’ scooter. So, 5 days and 1 birthday later we packed up, reversed out, drove back in, reversed a bit more, scratched the trailer a bit and inched down a pedestrian walkway in order to get back on the road.
The Turkish border was interesting. Baggage control. Baggage being the entire trailer and all its contents. It did give us the opportunity to ditch a few things and sweep out the muesli that had spilled out in Finland though. We were half expecting to find a mouse and then slightly disappointed that we didn’t. On many occasions we have thought that a travelling animal companion would have been nice, although practically inconvenient. I have since considered a car cacti as a suitable substitute. Border issues aside, the mountain range that runs along the top of Greece, bottom of Bulgaria and in to Turkey is completely gorgeous and definitely something to return to someday.
So, Istanbul. I’m not going to lie – it’s probably the one place that we were equally excited about and dreading. Dreading mainly for the driving. And we were right. I will never forget my tall husband crouching in the boot of the car while 2 Turkish locals sat up front, directing us out of the side-squeezingly narrow and steep cobbled streets towards a secure parking lot. They didn’t speak any English. Directions were given with a series of beeps, hand gestures and loud order-barking. In Turkish. The guy in the front who kept leaning across and sounding the horn on my behalf when he saw one of his friends seemed delighted to be in the British car. The jovility extended to various stops for people to take photos of us and the trailer. And it was then that we knew we were going to love our stay. The friendliness, the willingness to share, help, advise, take care. Perfection. There’s few places where you feel instantly at home, we get there eventually with most of them, but Istanbul is one of those that is beautiful for its first impression.
3 days here. We’re wishing that we’d had a mileage reader because we walked and walked. And walked. But that’s what you’ve got to do. When you walk you talk, you meet people, you see the day to day. Istanbul has its awe-inspiring sights – the Blue Mosque, Haghia Sophia, Grand Bazaar, Boshphorus. But it’s life is on the streets. In 39yrs of living never before have I been in such an immense city in terms of size and character. It’s incredibly noisy. The call to prayer is beautiful. The kids on the street playing football. The street vendors calling out their wares. I filmed so many snippets – not of sights but just of sounds. You could illustrate that city by its sounds. If there is one city that I can inspire you to visit on this entire trip then hands down it is Istanbul. Go!
So we left: shorter in money, heavier in belongings, but truly greater in spirit.
newnomads2015 