Day 32 - Monday 13th March. Up early this morning as I need to report my missing travellers cheques to American Express. It was snowing quite heavily as I headed out at 8.30am and caught the bus to Taksim district - the bus was packed. The Hilton hotel was 5 minutes walk away and opposite the Tourist Information Office. I had to complete a long complicated form and then sign in triplicate. They would check with Head Office and tomorrow afternoon they would let me know whether new cheques would be issued. I walked back to Taksim square and then caught the bus to Sultanhamet and found the Post Restante. The next problem was to overcome the loss of the student cards - so wrote a letter to UK student office in London to ask for ... read more

Day 29 - Saturday 11th March Hurray a non-travel day. First stop as usual is Poste Restante - a letter for me but seven for Heather - I guess that I must write more letters myself ! We went into a museum and then to the Basillica Cistern which was beautifully decorated. A group of Turkish girls befriended us and asked for us to join in their photographs. There were going to a discotheque tonight but alas it would be too expensive. We walked through the park to view the Bosphorus and here started a disasterous few hours. One of the pleasures of travelling is meeting new people but one of the dilemmas is the desire to be friendly whilst maintaining a level of distrust because every now and again there are fraudsters - how to ... read more

Day 27 - Thursday 9th March We decided to change Youth Hostels and move to Athens No 3 which was considerably cleaner - unfortuantely it did mean that we had less time for sightseeing. After the mandatory trip to Poste Restante, the first tourist area was the flea market, which was full of cheap junk shops with nothing worth buying - moved on quickly. Theseum - the Temple of Hephaestus the God of Fire and Blacksmiths. However there were more attractive ruins on the site Agora including where St Paul had preached a famous sermon about the Unknown God. A lot of the excavations had commenced post war. Next stop was the Acropolis which was free to enter. The temples, the pillars and other monuments were just amazing with their beauty further enhanced by the bright ... read more

Day 25 - Tuesday 7th March It was an early start as the bus was due to leave Titograd at 6am. It was still dark as Heather, Michael, Tomio and myself climbed out of the bedroom window (luckily the Canadians had been allocated a room on the ground floor), crept through the hotel gardens and headed for the bus station. Our group of westerners for this bus trip increased as five more people had travelled on the late bus from Dubrovnik. Although there were crowds of people at the bus station, we all managed to get a seat. Tomio immediately fell asleep and so I concentrated instead on the scenery. It was certainly beautiful - snow-capped mountains as the road followed a stream. Some areas were very green but there was not much land, which looked ... read more

Day 23 - Sunday 5th March A good night's sleep. The room looked out over some palm trees and an orange tree but alas this scene was not reflected in today's weather - cloudy, overcast and threatening. First stop of the day was a pastry shop for a coffee and two delicious cakes. Tony was leaving for Athens today. We walked to the harbour and then along a oneway street in search of main road to Kotor - he was planning to hitch-hike. We walked for 4Km right under the cliffs and admired the magnificent coastline. There were a few more western travellers around in Dubrovnik and we stopped for a friendly chat with a group of five - American, Argentinian and British. At last we arrived at a reasonable hitching point and I left Tony ... read more