Geo: 41.0245, 28.9881Liz kindly got up early to take me to Brixton to catch the tube to Heathrow. Traffic jam in Norwood road, traffic jam in. Brixton but she cleverly swooped into the church parking where she could turn round to head home and my walk to the tube was short. The usual hassle of being on a rush hour tube with a big bag, but it's more them going to work and me to Istanbul that gets the grim looks . So early at the gate terminal 5 for my 10.35 ba flight.Liz tells me later norwood jam caused by tree falling on moving cars.Those horrified by tales of 3 hour queues at heathrow immigration will be intrigued to know the wait here at istanbul was 5 minutes,plus 1minute wait in queue for visa, better ... read more

Geo: 51.5002, -0.126236As I write this...I'm not even there! This trip has been long in the planning, My e-mail box for the trip includes notes from the TripAdvisor forum for Georgia as far back as February 2011! That was when I was still working out how to get round the Black Sea without resorting to a flight because the borders between Georgia and Russia are closed to 'foreigners'. But eventually I found out about Abkhazia, a break-away republic of Georgia on the Black Sea coast. Georgia doesn't recognise it as a separate country so you can travel across the 'border', though they may discourage you. Abkhazia itself is recognised by Russia (and uses the Rouble, and the Russian international dialling code) so once there one can cross into Russia. Happy Days! There is even a gentleman, ... read more