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Thursday, September 8, 2022 - 19:41 |
Today was our last day of the trip as we finally completed our journey back to Pura, Switzerland where we set off 58 days ago. As has been fairly common since we got back to Europe last week, rain was a problem for our planned activities today. After pouring all through the night, we woke up to further heavy rain and clouds hanging over the alpine valley where our accommodation was situated. ... |
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Wednesday, September 7, 2022 - 20:22 |
After seeing the forecast yesterday, we decided to wake up extra early today to get to Lake Bled before the forecast thunderstorms were supposed to come in around lunch time. In the end the forecast turned out to be completely wrong and the only rain we saw all day was just as the sun was setting when we arrived at our hotel outside Bolzano. ... |
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Tuesday, September 6, 2022 - 20:12 |
Two days in one today since we didn't end up doing very much on our second full day in Budapest yesterday. This wasn't for lack of trying, but we got a little bit unlucky with some of the activities we had planned. First I had to work in the morning which was my first time working in the CEST timezone in several weeks, and meant I finished by lunch time which was nice. ... |
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Sunday, September 4, 2022 - 18:54 |
Today was our first full day in Budapest, and it really feels now like the 'travelling' part of our trip is over, and we could easily be on a weekend break in Europe at this point. There are seemingly more tourists than locals in the city centre, including lots of British and Americans which we haven't seen many of previously on the trip. ... |
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Saturday, September 3, 2022 - 21:49 |
Two days in one today since yesterday was a mostly wasted day while it rained all morning and until about 5pm. This meant we were confined to our hotel during most of the daylight hours, and couldn't go on the free walking tour which started at either 10am or 2pm. ... |
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Thursday, September 1, 2022 - 22:22 |
A short post today since we didn't do very much in the end. After oversleeping due to Lucy waking us up with teething pain at 4am and taking some time to get back to sleep, we left Skopje later than planned about 10.30am. This wasn't ideal since there was 5 hours of driving to do to Belgrade, and that was if the border between North Macedonia and Serbia was to have minimal queues. ... |
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Wednesday, August 31, 2022 - 21:27 |
Today we did a day trip from Skopje in North Macedonia to the capital of Kosovo, Pristina. We did it as a return day trip since even though we are going to Serbia next, if you enter Serbia from Kosovo you cannot get a Serbian entry stamp since Serbia does not recognise Kosovo as an independent country, but considers it a province of Serbia. ... |
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Tuesday, August 30, 2022 - 15:24 |
This morning we set off nice and early to try to get to the Bulgaria/North Macedonia border before it gets too busy. We had absolutely no idea what to expect from this border (or from North Macedonia for that matter), and all we had to go by was a bit of traffic showing on Google Maps, though Google has been very wrong about time taken to cross most of the borders so far. ... |
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Monday, August 29, 2022 - 12:58 |
After having a brief venture to the city centre of Sofia for dinner last night, this morning we returned for the city's Free Walking Tour. As usual with these tours, we tried to time Lucy's nap to begin right at the start of the tour, though unfortunately it didn't work out very well today and she was awake for the whole thing. ... |
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Sunday, August 28, 2022 - 15:23 |
After 10 nights in Turkey, today was finally time to say goodbye and cross back into Eastern Europe at the Kapikule/Kapitan border of Turkey and Bulgaria. It was only about a 20 minute drive from our hotel to the border post, and the road took us parallel to the River Maritsa which marks the Greece/Turkey border in this area. ... |
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Saturday, August 27, 2022 - 16:29 |
After our plan to visit the bazaars last night was scuppered by their early closing times, we got to them first thing this morning shortly after they opened instead. The half hour walk from our apartment in Galata was rather scenic, taking us over the Galata Bridge which crosses the Golden Horn waterway, with views out across much of the city centre including the old city and its mosques. ... |
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Friday, August 26, 2022 - 15:27 |
Today was our second full day in Istanbul of the trip, and we had originally planned to do a free walking tour of the old town in the morning. However we couldn't find a suitable one which didn't involve going back inside the Hagia Sophia, so we decided to give that a miss and go straight to the Dolmabahçe Palace on the shore of the Bosporus instead. ... |
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Thursday, August 25, 2022 - 21:41 |
We started the day today not in the best of moods since the air conditioning in the whole hotel didn't seem to be working. This meant Lucy struggled to sleep, and we therefore struggled to sleep. In the morning I complained to the management and after assuring us it was working properly (it wasn't, it was just a fan, not real AC), offered a discount on the room rate for our discomfort. ... |
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Wednesday, August 24, 2022 - 20:32 |
This morning was our final excursion in the Cappadocia region, to Uchisar Castle which we decided to postpone from yesterday to today. The castle is known to be quite a good sunset and sunrise spot, but we couldn't face another 5am start, and instead had a leisurely breakfast and arrived at the car park below the castle about 9.30am. ... |
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Tuesday, August 23, 2022 - 07:50 |
Two days in one today since most of yesterday was spent working, and we didn't do very much afterwards since we wanted to get an early night in order to wake up early toady for the famous sunrise over the valleys (more on that to come). What we did do though was take a drive around some of the viewpoints in the late afternoon to take some photos of the beautiful scenery. ... |
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Sunday, August 21, 2022 - 20:40 |
The majority of the day today was spent making the five hour drive from Malatya to Ürgüp, with a few stops at the side of the road and a charging stop in Kayseri. The whole route was a near-motorway standard dual carriageway, taking us through the same landscapes we have seen the last couple of days, with nothing particularly of note to comment on. ... |
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Saturday, August 20, 2022 - 17:22 |
Today was our first day in a a few days which wasn't simply about getting to the next place,and hoping the scenery would be interesting on the way. Instead, we had an actual planned stop at the rather obscure but very interesting Unesco site of Mount Nemrut. ... |
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Friday, August 19, 2022 - 20:26 |
A fairly short entry today since we spent most of the day driving to Diyarbakır. The drive itself wasn't a patch on the drive yesterday, with the scenery being mostly fairly low-lying steppe, and then very dry farmland for the last 50 miles of approach to Diyarbakır. ... |
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Thursday, August 18, 2022 - 19:09 |
Today was quite an eventful driving day as we finally left the Caucasus region and made our way back into Turkey via a different route to the one we came. Before any of that though I got up bright and early to have a run around Akhaltsikhe. As usual, this was a great way to see a city, and it was interesting to see how newly developed the place is, with lovely paved paths to run down. ... |
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Wednesday, August 17, 2022 - 19:51 |
Just after lunch today I was considering not bothering with a blog entry since the day had been completely uneventful as we drove from Gudauri to our hotel for the night in Akhaltsikhe near the Turkish border. ... |
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Tuesday, August 16, 2022 - 18:44 |
Today was supposed to be the day we reached Baku, but with all of Azerbaijan's land borders firmly closed, we have changed our itinerary from Tbilisi and are heading northward instead of eastward. ... |
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Monday, August 15, 2022 - 18:03 |
We've spent the last two days continuing to rest up in Tbilisi before we hit the road again tomorrow, since we will be driving every day for the next week. As is tradition, we have rented an apartment for Sunday and Monday so I can work comfortably on Monday morning, and we can have a reset of our luggage by doing all our washing. ... |
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Saturday, August 13, 2022 - 15:17 |
Today we did the free walking tour in Tbilisi, which as well as giving us information about the city, also allowed us to finally learn a bit more about Georgia and its history too. The tour started in the closest thing Tbilisi seems to have to a city centre, at the bottom of Freedom Square not too far from the river. ... |
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Friday, August 12, 2022 - 20:52 |
After some busy days of sight seeing around Armenia, we didn't actually have any sights to see today; all we had to do was make the four hour drive from our hotel on Lake Sevan up to the Georgian capital Tbilisi, with the small matter of a border crossing in the middle. ... |
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Thursday, August 11, 2022 - 19:50 |
Before I talk about today, I need to break the news that we unfortunately aren't going to make it to Baku, Azerbaijan, which was the original furthest point of our itinerary. This is because the Azerbaijanis still haven't opened their land borders since the pandemic, and are not reviewing this policy again until at least September 1st according to newspaper articles. ... |
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Wednesday, August 10, 2022 - 19:38 |
Today was a classic road trip day with lots of smaller stops as we made our way from Yerevan down to Tatev in the South East of Armenia across the ever-changing landscapes this country has to offer. ... |
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Tuesday, August 9, 2022 - 19:39 |
I can't start the blog today without saying HAPPY BIRTHDAY LUCY! Lucy turned one today, so we of course made a huge fuss of her throughout the day, gave her some presents, and got some balloons and cake to celebrate in our hotel room. ... |
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Tuesday, August 9, 2022 - 06:52 |
We got up very early this morning so that we could cross the Georgia/Armenia border before I had to do a half day of work starting at 11.30am local time. I'd read this border was a straightforward one, but so as not to take any chances we left a buffer of 90 minutes just in case things went wrong. ... |
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Sunday, August 7, 2022 - 13:02 |
When we woke up this morning we cautiously looked out the window and were very pleased to see that the weather forecast had got things completely wrong for a second day in a row. Rather than thunderstorms, there was bright sunshine and mostly clear skies, with the storm forecast pushed out to the mid afternoon. This meant we headed straight to see Vardzia after breakfast. ... |
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Saturday, August 6, 2022 - 19:32 |
We were a little nervous going to bed last night since the forecast for today was showing thunderstorms all morning until about 3pm, which coincided with the time we had reserved to see Borjomi. Luckily when we woke up we could already see the sun through the curtains, and the weather was perfect all day long. ... |
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Friday, August 5, 2022 - 19:23 |
Today we got back on the road and our task was to drive the roughly five hours from Batumi to our hotel for the night in the mountain resort town of Borjomi. As soon as we set off from Batumi it became apparent that this was going to be a bit of a slog of a drive, with busy single carriageway most of the way other than a few miles of recently completed motorway. ... |
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Thursday, August 4, 2022 - 18:02 |
We have continued to relax in Batumi the last couple of days, though personally I've struggled slightly due to some kind of stomach bug. Luckily it hasn't held us up completely, and loaded with ibuprofen we did still manage to get out to explore the rest of Batumi city centre yesterday late afternoon and early evening. ... |
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Tuesday, August 2, 2022 - 20:09 |
After a very late arrival in Batumi on Sunday night, we have had a bit of time to recover and take it in the last two days. I should say we are actually spending five nights in total in Batumi as we take a mini break during the road trip after the quite intense days of driving across Turkey recently. ... |
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Sunday, July 31, 2022 - 22:12 |
Today was our last day in Turkey until the return leg of the trip. We were supposed to spend two more days in the Black Sea region but we've changed our plans slightly due to the lack of dog friendly accommodation in the area. As a result we are heading into Georgia two days ahead of schedule, since almost all the hotels and apartments there allow pets. ... |
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Saturday, July 30, 2022 - 19:52 |
After the mammoth driving day yesterday we took a well deserved slow start to the day today, not leaving out hotel until about 11.30am. Our main task for the day was then the roughly five hour drive to the next major city along the Black Sea coast: Trabzon. ... |
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Friday, July 29, 2022 - 18:35 |
Today wasn't the day we had planned for due to complications finding a hotel halfway between Istanbul and Samsun. We got some locals to call a few hotels but unfortunately none of them would accept dogs no matter how cute we explained Summer is. One offered to take us as long as Summer stayed in a kennel outside, but we didn't think that was an acceptable compromise! ... |
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Thursday, July 28, 2022 - 20:08 |
After a few lazier days in some resort towns, today we finally made it to Istanbul, which is quite the opposite being one of the world's megacities, and much bigger than we had imagined. The drive from Kumbağ was about two and a half hours, and we hugged the coast the whole way, providing much more scenic views compared to the alternative inland route. ... |
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Wednesday, July 27, 2022 - 20:58 |
After a lot of anticipation, today was the day we successfully crossed into Turkey! The drive from Kavala to the border crossing took about two hours, and wasn't a particularly interesting drive, with low lying mountains to the West, and mostly farmland to the East. ... |
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Tuesday, July 26, 2022 - 16:38 |
Two days in one today since Monday is becoming our weekly rest day due to me working on Monday mornings each week throughout the trip. We are using these days to find an apartment for two nights, where we can also catch up on clothes washing and just generally relax. ... |
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Sunday, July 24, 2022 - 19:41 |
First a short complaint: we are getting a bit fed up with the heat dome which is affecting all of Europe at the moment! Every day for the past 10 days has been between 35-40 degrees wherever we have been, which is significantly above the average of 29-32ish expected for this time of year. ... |
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Saturday, July 23, 2022 - 21:13 |
My day started particularly early today, since I got up at 4.30am to move the car from blocking the path outside the hotel down the road after it was fully charged. This wasn't as bad as it sounds, since it allowed me to enjoy the clear night sky with almost no light pollution this far from any significant population centre. ... |
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Friday, July 22, 2022 - 21:09 |
We changed our plans slightly today after finding Sarandë a bit too busy for our liking, and not a great place to relax as a family. Nothing against this lively resort city in a stunning setting, but it is more a place for partying or families with older children (the streets are very un-buggy friendly). ... |
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Thursday, July 21, 2022 - 21:19 |
We had another easy day today as we did some scenic driving further down the Adriatic coastline of Albania to Sarandë. This ended up taking nearly 3 hours to do just 68 miles, but that was because the entire route was around and over the extremely mountainous coastline. ... |
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Wednesday, July 20, 2022 - 20:12 |
After a busy day yesterday with a 4 hour drive, a border crossing, and a 2 hour walking tour, we thankfully had a much slower day today. I started the day by getting up relatively early to take a run around Tirana before it got too hot. ... |
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Tuesday, July 19, 2022 - 16:27 |
Two days in one today since we didn't do much yesterday while we spent the day in Budva. I worked from the apartment in the morning and Melisa relaxed at the pool, then in the afternoon we went to the beach. The beach was absolutely packed and had beach bars and clubs along the whole front with different types of loud music blaring. ... |
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Sunday, July 17, 2022 - 18:40 |
Today we woke up early so we could get to the Bosnia/Montenegro border before it got too busy. The two hour drive to the border was again on mountainous roads through some beautiful scenery (two words I think I'll be saying a lot more in these blog pages), though the highlight of this first stretch has to be getting pulled over. ... |
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Saturday, July 16, 2022 - 16:50 |
The original plan was to leave Sarajevo early this morning, but we delayed our departure in order to do another walking tour about the Yugoslavia War and the Siege of Sarajevo; we thought it would be a shame to leave Sarajevo without learning a bit more about the darker part of the city's history. ... |
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Friday, July 15, 2022 - 20:43 |
The first half of today was spent driving from Banja Luka down to Sarajevo. When I saw Google Maps telling us it would take 3 and a half hours to drive 120miles/190km I realised we weren't going to see much, if any motorway on this drive. ... |
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Thursday, July 14, 2022 - 22:00 |
We started the day waking up in our cabin in the forest in Croatia, which unfortunately hadn't given us a great night's sleep last night. Lucy didn't sleep very well and the place had what I can best describe as an 'itchy' feel to it. Looking forward to a real hotel tonight in Bosnia! After a quick breakfast, we packed up and were on our way South East toward the Croatia/Bosnia border. ... |
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Wednesday, July 13, 2022 - 21:15 |
After arriving yesterday evening, today we spent most of the day visiting the city centre of Ljubljana. It was about a 10 minute drive from our hotel to the parking at Kongresni (Congress) Square, where parking was €1.50 per hour for the first 3 hours, then €2.40 per hour after that. On the way we had our first driving incident of the trip, when someone drove into the back of us at a junction! ... |
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Tuesday, July 12, 2022 - 20:44 |
Yesterday we spent the day in Pura since I had to work in the morning and we wanted to try to get a pet passport for Summer (see below). ... |
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Sunday, July 10, 2022 - 21:37 |
Like yesterday, today was simply about getting to Switzerland so we are ready for the main trip to start on Tuesday morning. We had a rather pleasant day of driving South, criss-crossing the French-German border along the Rhine, before entering Switzerland at Basel. ... |
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Sunday, July 10, 2022 - 21:09 |
Today should have been a nice easy start to the trip with the rather dull drive across Northern France, Belgium and Luxembourg we have done a couple of times before. However the Eurostar was delayed 3 hours which really spoilt things and meant we were on the back foot for the rest of the day. ... |
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Saturday, July 9, 2022 - 21:46 |
Welcome to our blog!
This summer we are attempting to drive from London to Baku in our brand new BMW iX3. The 'we' in this sentence are James and Melisa, and our 11 month (at the start of the trip) old daughter Lucy. No member of the family gets left behind, so we are also bringing our dog Summer with us, who is a 2 year old Pembrokeshire Welsh Corgi. ... |
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