From here to there

Regular blogging?  Gotta get into the habit somehow, even if we haven't left yet!

If you've come to have a look then you may want to know that WE know where we're going.  We sort of do, but then we want to be able to change our plans as the whim takes us which means leaving some holes in the itinerary.  They feel a little bit scary at times as we won't know how deep they are until we step in them! 

Anyway, we fly out on Korean Air 8th June 9am with a (long) transit in Seoul.  Hopefully enough time to have a bit of a look around but I'm not sure whether we will actually clear customs there yet.  It is technically a transit, not stopover.  At least they give us a hotel room so that we can have a bit of a horizontal kip.

Istanbul first stop, 4 nights hotel there, time to get over the trip and get used to the clamour.  That's when the gap starts... we plan to go down to Gallipoli and have some ideas about the how but won't organise until we get to Istanbul; am hoping it will be easier than from here.  Route then takes us through northern Greece (train? who knows) to Kavala where we'll catch a ferry to the island of Limnos.  We've got an apartment booked for a week.

We've got transport off the island, just not onto yet!  From Limnos we head down (overnight ferry) to Athens  for 3 nights (should be interesting to try the doco skills there at the moment, I've seen some amazing photos of the rioting posted on the net) then head for Croatia.  Notice the "for" Croatia... not "to"... Can't seem to get directly there - we have to take a 15 hr ferry to Bari in Italy across the Adriatic then another 12 or 15hr ferry back across the Adriatic to Dubrovnik!  Great.  Memo to self... stock up on Cook Strait Calmers.  I think that's the bit I'm dreading the most, considering I can get seasick on a moored boat!  Good sailor stock I come from.

We're looking forward to Croatia - one night in Dubrovnik in a B&B then over to the island of Hvar to stay in the village of Sucuraj.  A friend from Rotorua has family here so we've been able to organise accommodation with relatives with apartments there too.  I love the fact that one cousin has the local bistro, another the supermarket, and the list goes on!  The village is on the opposite side of the island to the main town of Hvar where most tourists stay.

After our three nights there we've left a pretty large hole - we're hoping that a bit of local knowledge will direct the rest of our time in Croatia and we can extend it or not as we wish.  At some point we'll have to get on the bus to Zagreb and from there train to Vienna for a couple of nights; train onto Prague for about 3 nights then plan to train to Germany somewhere between the 12th - 15th July.  We'll be meeting Joachim (Jojo) in Stuttgart, I'm really excited - we haven't seen each other for almost exactly 14 years!  We also hope to be able to meet up with another friend from Rotorua who will be at his family home in Germany while we're there. The rest of the time we'll travel around Germany, I am really hoping that we will be able to meet Jojo's family as well before we head home from Frankfurt on the 31st July.  I'll be trying to find some excuse for Mark to want to travel to Berlin... so I can got to the Bauhaus ArchivMuseum.... hehehe

Will post more before we go.

THE END.

Counting the days...

I've been trying not to count sleeps but someone else just told me it was now only 20 till we go.  Don't really want to think about that yet; I have 40 days work to do.  

However, that discussion reminded me that I need to begin communicating again, so here's the start!  Time to reset the passwords - AGAIN - (how come I never can remember them, or where I wrote them down in case I forgot?) and remember how to blog and skype and facebook and, and, and...

The bedroom is gradually becoming a walk in wardrobe as I throw things out of drawers to go in the "shall-I-take-it-or-not" pile.  It's pretty hard already to think in terms of 24-28deg heat when I've now dug out the winter woollies.  I find myself accidentally buying merino thermals, again, "just in case".  I've emptied all the non essentials out of my camera bag and they amount to a pile that would probably fit into a thimble.  So much for saving weight in that department... just have to leave a few more clothes behind.  Thank goodness for "no stink" merino!  The nights are getting shorter while I try and cram more into the days and I must remember to figure out whether the Eurail pass does the ferries in Greece... so far we have a big gap in the itinerary where it is meant to say "travel to Greek Island for a week's holiday in the sun".  We have the holiday bit, just not the travel bit.

Wondering if Mark would notice me putting another "shopping" bag inside his pack... Istanbul and the souqs beckon. 

It's tomorrow already - post update next week maybe.