Turkey & East Central Europe

Turkey

Figuring that there are only going to be so many opportunities to explore the eastern provinces of Turkey we faced some difficult decisions as to our itinerary. With internal tensions in Kurdish areas heightened and the Syrian border a no-go area, the decision in the end was made for us. We went to the other end of the spectrum and therefore avoided the most interesting destinations in that area and instead resolved to follow the Black Sea coast, an area not visited much by travellers from Europe - who typically head for the Mediterranean coast. What a delight it was, a Turkish riviera. From Armenia we headed north through the mountains of Eastern Anatolia before descending to the coast at Rize; which we basically followed all the way into Istanbul.

East Central Europe

In Istanbul we were joined by my father, who will travel with us throughout the Central Europe leg before Christmas with Han’s folks on the shores of Starmberger See at Tutzing, south of Munich. To get there we are stringing together the capitals of Sofia, Bucharest, Belgrade, Budapest, Bratislava and Prague - we’re hoping to make back-to-back comparisons of their Christmas markets given it’s that time of year. The only major detour along this route being a few extra days exploring the castles and medieval towns of Transylvania. From there we had family members join for a Christmas week in Germany.