Day 13 – Tuesday 20th October So here I am, touring around the other side of the world, whilst so many other things appear to be going down the gurgler. We’ve just departed from Romania, which borders on Ukraine, and which we talked about with our guide Victor at some length. A couple of days ago it was reported that Presidents Putin, Xi and Trump would meet to decide the fate of that country; this century’s three worst dictators potentially meeting to decide the fate of

Day 12 – Monday 19th October An amusing little anecdote to start today’s brief commentary. We were wandering around the Galata area (more of that later), and a lovely patterned shoulder bag caught J’s eye. The shop owner invited us in, as they do, to see all his wares. Most of the bags had pictures of cats on them, to which J said “I don’t like cats”, meaning “I don’t want a cat bag”. The owner gave her a wry smile and said “It is İstanbul, you know!”. Those of you who’ve bee

Day 11 – Sunday 18th October Unlike the last week in Romania, there’s no societal or community stories to tell here; at least not yet. Yes, there’s plenty of history, both generally about the Ottoman Empire and specifically about places such as the Hagia Sofia, but I think today I won’t dive into that. Today was simply a day of wandering and exploring. We had arrived last night and had strolled down the road to Sultan Ahmet Park to do a quick orientation, and this morning aft

Days 9 and 10 – Friday 16th and Saturday 17th October Our final day and a half in Romania really capped off a brilliant experience. I said a day or so back something to the effect that the trip was delivering beyond expectations. And so it continued. The most graphic standout was learning about life under some 40 years of brutal regimes. I know I have a propensity for intolerance; having listened to Victor's stories over the last week, culminating in standing in Bucharest's R

Day 8 – Thursday 15th October Today was our only 2-night stay during the Romanian leg, staying at the lovely Schuster Boarding House in the centre of old Brașov. After a sensible start we joined Victor for a two-hour walk around the old town. Brașov is a town of just under 400,000 people in the greater metro area, with, like so may places in Romania, a recent history going back 1,000 years (the ancient history rgoes back 10 times that figure). We started with a visit to the

Sighișoara to Brașov via Viscri and Prejmer It’s sort of hard to know where and how to continue this blog/story. The enigmatic gift that is Romania keeps on giving. Going back more than 12 months when we planned this trip, it really was no more than a whim which brought us here. The trip was simply to go to Istanbul and looking at a map I chanced on Romania simply because it was nearby. What a mistake it was to discount it so flippantly, and what a bonus it has been to visi

Sibiu to Rimitea via Corvin Castle and Alba Iulia Citadel When I first planned this trip Corvin Castle was one of the “must see” highlights (the hyperlink provides some very interesting background). Prior to that I knew nothing of it beyond what my travel AI and Google had told me; everyone visiting Transylvania knows of Bran Castle for example, but Corvin is not commonly known. It took a couple of hours to get to there, and we arrived at 11:30 and wandered, as on Mondays the

Bucharest to Sibiu via the Transfagarasan Road All being well I’ll throw a few photos in to this post. After leaving the hotel at 8am we hit the road towards the Transylvanian Alps, aka the Faragas Mountains or the Southern Carpathians. First stop was a photo opportunity to see Burg Poenari – first constructed in 1453 and one of the “homes” (fortresses) of Vlad III (aka Vlad Drucula or Vlad the Impaler), who lived from 1428/31 until 1476/7. Much more of Vlad later in this jou

Yallingup to Perth to KL to Istanbul to Bucharest – Thursday 8th – Saturday 10th October We’ve been “on the road”, so to speak, for almost 2 days. Actually on the road only from home a little after 6pm on Thursday to Perth, where we dropped off the car at Helen’s place around 10-ish, caught an Uber to the airport, and then two flights – one Malaysian and one Turkish – to Istanbul. About 16 hours in the air in total, plus a couple of hours at KLIA. The Malaysian A330 was nice;