We hadn't gone to sleep until almost 2 am last night, so we were kind of tired when we had to wake up at 9.30 to pack and check out from the hostel in time. After that we walked to the railway station and decided there that we would take the train to Brasov. We have plans to visit three Transilvanian cities, of which Brasov is the biggest one. Train schedule was the deciding factor regarding which city to visit first. To Sibiu and Sighisoara schedules were such that we would have arrived only in the evening, and we didn't want that because we didn't have accomodation booked. Train journey to Brasov lasted about 3 hours. Scenery changed from flat fields to more mountanious landscape the closer to Transilvania we got. At the Brasov railway station ... read more

Today was basically the only day we had to look around in Bucharest. It was enough to change my images of the city (and country) completely. Kind of embarrassing to admit, but I had images that the city would be full of Roma beggars, stray dogs running around and pick pockets...Sure, the city has lots and lots of ugly Soviet style grey block houses even in the very center, but it has also friendly and relaxed athmosphere (we have again had several encounters with very friendly and helpful locals that would be unlikely to happen back home), excellent quality for the price at restaurants and cafés, good shopping (many international chains which are not available in Helsinki), and also parts of the beautiful old center still exist today. I also find cities like this, which have ... read more

We had a slow start for the day and it was already afternoon when we left the hostel to have a coffee. There is exactly one place (that we know of) in Göreme where u can get "normal" coffee: not nescafe or turkish coffee. At the café we decided to rent a scooter and drive to see an underground city. So, we went to scooter rental shop and Leo had a test drive with the employees to see that he actually can drive the thing. The underground city is located in Kaymakli, around 20km from Göreme. The drive there was quite peaceful, not too much traffic on the roads and pretty countryside landscapes. Driving the scooter (and sitting at the back) was very much fun, you could just enjoy views and the wind, and almost empty ... read more

Our hostel here in Göreme is great for sleeping: no noise, no heath at night and real blankets and pillows. So, we slept until 10am (or I did, Leo woke up at 8). I had pancake with banana and chocolate for breakfast. When I was eating it, Leo said that when he saw that on the menu he was thinking that would be the last thing he would have..hah..anyway i guess he was on to something since i also decided to have the Turkish breakfast next time. We had decided to go see the Love Valley. You can check the pictures to judge for yourself where you think the name comes from ;) We thought it would be a shorthish walk to the valley, looking around for a while and walking back. But we ended up ... read more

I slept better than ever before during our trip, thanks to the ear plugs we bought the day before. The only thing on our agenda for the day was Istanbul Moden Art Museum and especially their photography exhibition. The museum was huge and we spent quite a lot of time browsing their permanent exhibition at first, which was perhaps a mistake since exhibition was not extremely interesting plus the building was quite cold. We had to go warm ourselves at the museum's café with a cool Bosphorus view terrace. The two other exhibitions were much more interesting and afterwards I wished we had spent more time and energy on those. The photographs showed Turkish life from 1950s to today, few even from 19th century. After museum we were quite tired and hungry, and started looking for ... read more