Well, we are nearly at the end of out trip, we fly out of Istanbul on Thursday. We have not had nearly long enough here, only really in Jordan and Syria did we feel that we had seen enough. We decided not to spend much time here in Turkey as we would only get frustrated at not being able to see what we want, we'll just have to come back again! Anyway, what have we done since the last blog. We left Jordan and travelled to Damascus, Syria. We spent about 36 hours there, enough to see what we wanted to see. We spent a long morning going round the old city, round the mosque and the neat, narrow back streets. We had a lovely breakfast of these flat bread things with a cheese and egg ... read more

I think last time we wrote, we were going to take a bus to Hurghada and then take the boat to Sharm El Sheik and on to Dahab. About 10 minutes before the bus left, we changed our minds and bought tickets to Suez instead, with the idea of staying there one night and catching another bus to Dahab, saving ourselves about 200 Egyptian pounds each. It meant more time sat on a bus, but we got to Dahab just after the people that took the expensive option. We didnt have any time to look round Suez, at the canal or anything, as our bus arrived late and the next one left early the following morning. We probably didnt miss much, the parts of Suez we did see werent all that good, its a service town ... read more

The tour we were booked on this morning didnt turn up. After hassling the guy in the hostel for a bit - he wasnt bothered that we had paid already! - he spoke to someone on the phone then wandered into the street and flagged down the first passing minibus full of tourists. This he claimed was our tour, but... still, it was going where we wanted to go. We drove about 7km from Luxor until we reached a bridge over the Nile. Then of course, we had to drive all the way back again as the tombs we were going to are pretty much across from Karnak. We went to the Valley of the Queens first, a bit of a misnomer as there are not only Queens buried here but also high officials and royal ... read more

Day One - Getting here From a chilly September morning in the UK to a "warm" 40C in Cairo - it was a long day gett ing here. The flights were all ok (even if the first one did leave Heathrow at 6.30am and we got up way earlier than that!) and got us safely to a hot and dusty Cairo. The ride from the airport to the hostel, by a driver / car organised by the hostel as part of a 'deal', was kind of fast and hair-raising. Horns blared non-stop...lane markings are ignored as is anyone else who may be in the space you want to occupy...three lane roads mean at least five lanes of cars...and as for speed limits, what an alien idea! Still, we got to the hostel and we given a ... read more

DAY FOUR The old part of Atocha Station is a neat classical, Victorian style building, huge with a glassed roof, full of tropical plants and misters. We had plenty of time to look round before our train to Toledo this morning. Toledo was a fascinating city. We spent our time wandering around the old town, entering through the main gate in the wall. We went to the Alcazar first, the old fort / palace, a neat building but the museum inside was mainly military with little on the history of the building and what it had been used for. Next was the Taller del Moro where we could look round three rooms of a 14th century Mudejar palace (Mudejar refers to architecture etc. built by Moorish craftsmen under Christian rule). There was some excellent carvings in ... read more