London to Istanbul - The Hard Way!

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Prologue:
It's taken a while but we're finally on the road again. We missed out on our planned Danube ride in 2020, so we've taken that and run (ridden) with it. We added the Rhine and Main Rivers to come up with a trans-European route only to realise it was probably a little further than we could fit in our available time. Not only that, but the Danube flows into the Black Sea at Constanta on the Romanian coast, just a little too close to Ukraine and "Mad Vlad" for our liking. Instead, after reaching Belgrade via the Danube trail, we'll head south and east through eastern Europe ending up at Istanbul. It's still going to be an epic adventure. We'll visit 14 countries (I think?) and travel roughly 4,500km over 3 months (well, that's the plan anyway). The only places we've booked accommodation are London and Vienna to Budapest. We'll play the rest by ear.

This is a 92 day trip, and while I normally blog every day, I'm not sure that will be possible this time round, so there may be a few gaps between posts.

The Cyclists:
Jeff (aka Ray Charles) - Will be doing the whole trip. We've ridden France, Melbourne to Uluru, Across the USA, through the Candian Rockies and a lot of country Victoria together. Despite that, we're teaming up again!
Tom (aka Tommy-Too-Far) - Will be joining us for the second half of the trip from Vienna to Istanbul. He's ridden all the big rides with us but only got a leave pass for the second half this time round.
Mark (aka Richo) - With 9 months Long Service Leave on my hands what else is there to do? Hop on a plane, and find somewhere new to explore on the bike. What an adventure!

Foot Note:
As usual, people ask, "Have you been training?" and, as usual, we respond with, "We'll train when we get there".

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