December 5 - 7, 2006 Tuesday We arrived at the Konya bus station, approximately 15 kilometers outside of the city center, after dark and apparently in the midst of rush hour. Completely clueless we followed the crowds from the bus station to the city tram line. Wedging our voluminous bags into crowded public transportation has become one of the most enjoyable aspects of our trip and this was no exception. We couldn’t help but feel horribly impolite but the local Turks were accommodating and patient with us. A very nice older man on the train pointed out a seat to Amy [View Full Entry]

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Safranbolu December 3 - 5, 2006 Sunday The 225 kilometer bus ride from Ankara to Safranbolu was uneventful, though we really enjoy the full service snack, drink, and perfume service. At a bathroom stop, we each got a little bite to eat, something like warm pita bread rolled with a little cheese and then grilled, a tasty treat that surprisingly filled us up. When we got to Safranbolu we didn’t really get to Safranbolu. Our bus deposited us on the outskirts of town near an impossibly ancient looking steel mill in Karabuk. From here we followed the rest of the passengers [View Full Entry]

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December 1 - 3, 2006 Friday We arrived in the Turkish capital of Ankara late in the afternoon. While Istanbul ranks as the historic and cultural hub of Turkey, Ankara was selected to serve as the Turkish capital in 1923 as part of the revolution (Ataturk preferred the isolated, authentically Anatatolian geography in making a symbolic distinction between the new and old regimes). At the close of World War I and the subsequent foundation of the Republic of Turkey Ankara had a population of around 20,000 people, somewhat more tidy than today’s mass of four million. From the bus st [View Full Entry]

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November 26-28, 2006 Sunday, November 26 Istanbul is a big city. Arriving at the Sirkeci train station bleary-eyed in the mid-morning after our long rail journey the size of the city was immediately evident. At first blush it seemed remarkably familiar. A tram ran by the McDonald’s across the street, bakery-cafes were visible in every direction, traffic was hectic, and the sidewalks jammed with seemingly half of the city’s 16 million people. It felt very European and we have to admit it was oddly pleasant to see people in suits again. As we fumbled our way to the nearby t [View Full Entry]

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Bosnia November 16 - 25, 2006 Thursday November 16 We took the 5:15 pm bus to Mostar from Dubrovnik. We think the actual drive time is only 2 hours but with stops and border crossings we were told it would take between 3 and 4 hours. The bus was the most crowded bus we had been on in quite awhile but it was still not even half full. At one point on the way from Dubrovnik there is about a 20 km stretch of coast that is Bosnian so you have to cross through 2 checkpoints there before even really [View Full Entry]

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Croatia (November 9 - 16) Zagreb (Thursday November 9 - Saturday November 11) We liked Zagreb a lot more than we would have expected based on what we read. Most of what we read on travel sites said to either skip it or come for a few hours and then move on. We thought a quick departure might be a possibility so we stored our bags at the train station before taking a walk around town. Croatia has a population of about 4.5 million people, almost 800,000 of whom live in Zagreb. The city grew out of a pair of [View Full Entry]

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Slovenia October 31 - November 9, 2006 We did not know what to expect when we started our trip east through the Balkans to Turkey. We had originally planned on going to Turkey and then decided not to because of some possible security issues but then we changed our minds again. In the process we decided rather than taking one long train journey it might be fun to see a different part of Europe and break up the overland journey to Istanbul. So this part of our trip occurred with little planning, little knowledge, and no guidebook. We had no [View Full Entry]

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Oct. 28 - 31, 2006 We weren’t sure whether we would go to Venice. Neither one of us had a burning desire to go but we felt like maybe we should check it out before we left Italy. If we had decided to move west from Italy we probably would have skipped it but once we decided to move east a visit to Venice made sense. While in Florence during our second visit we had free internet in our hotel room and so we started to research how to get there and where to stay. This was when we realized that [View Full Entry]

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Florence Oct. 21- 24, 2006 Saturday We woke up at 5am to leave San Gimignano and Tuscany for Florence where we would drop John and Pam at the train station. We got lost in the maze of Florentine streets before finally finding the train station, afterwards going to return the car to Europcar. We arrived at Europcar’s office at 7:45am and although Europcar didn’t open until 8 we were lucky to find a parking space right in front. Seconds after parking the caribinieri came to tell us to move or they would ticket us. The streets are confusing so this is [View Full Entry]

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Cinque Terre October 24 - 27, 2006 Tuesday After checking out of our Florence hotel we went to the train station to get cash and eat McDonald’s before leaving for Cinque Terre. The train to La Spezia, the station that serves as the start of the rail line that connects the five villages of Cinque Terre, was noteworthy solely for the huge number of fashionable students who disembarked at Pisa. Upon our arrival at La Spezia we saw a 2:45 train and a 3 pm train (we had to run to make the 2:45 train). The first stop should have been [View Full Entry]

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