Early Church surrounded by Communist Buildings
Taken by Neil Carey on July 21, 2006.
This church dates back something like 17 centuries, originally having been a Roman hall of some sort. There are roman ruins throughout the ground here, and the communists erected massive government buildings completely surrounding this area.

We've been travelling around Bulgaria for a few days now. After Plovdiv, we headed for the smallish city of Samokov, which is very close to the Rila mountains. Our goal in heading there was to spend a bit of time outside and rest up a bit. We were very impressed with the city, which wasn't very touristy at all, but still had english menus in the restaurants. Unfortunately there was limited hotel space and we could only stay 2 nights, before some outdoor group came that had everything booked up. So we spent our one full day there visiting the nearby ski resort of Borovetz, where we did some hiking. It was amazing the difference in price between Samokov and Borovetz, which are only about a 10 minute drive apart, as our lunch in Borovetz, which wasn't very good, cost more than breakfast and dinner combined in Samokov. Samokov itself isn't overly remarkable, except for the historical tidbit that it was the site of Bulgaria's first commune, founded in 1909.

Overview of Plovdiv
Taken by Neil Carey on July 17, 2006.

We've now arrived in Bulgaria, where we're currently staying in the second large city, at a pleasant 300,000 people, Plovdiv. There's a fantastic old city here, though not super old, as most of it was built up in the 19th century, during what's referred to as the Bulgarian National Revival Period, which seems to come up quite often in the list of things to see here. There's a distinct style of building from this period, where the second floor juts out past the first floor, and is supported by curved beams underneath, and then the outside is painted with what look like classical architecture features (columns and the like) except that they're just painted on.

The Blue Mosque, looking out a second story window at Aya Sofya
Taken by Neil Carey on July 13, 2006.
Heritage Site: Historic Areas of Istanbul, Turkey The Sultanahmet district of Istanbul is simply unforgettable. The whole time we were there, it never got old to just go for a walk through the park that lies between the Blue Mosque and the Aya Sofya.

Well, so far we've been having a great time in Istanbul. People are much friendlier than in Greece, and the sights are incredible.

I guess there's not a whole lot to say. So far we've visited the Blue Mosque and the Aya Sofya (Church of Divine Wisdom), which are both really spectacular, in their own way. The Blue Mosque is incredibly beautiful. The Aya Sofya seems a little dingy, but it's incredible to think that the building is 1500 years old and would have been quite unlike any of its contemporaries. It's under restoration, so part of the interior is blocked off by scaffolding.

The most frustrating thing that's happened here was yesterday afternoon, when, for no apparent reason, water throughout a sizable chunk of the city centre stopped running. Our hotel was included in the outage, which lasted from around noon until sometime after we'd gone to bed around midnight. It lead to the new experience of using bottled water to flush a toilet, which was necessary to keep our bathroom usable. Luckily the store across the street did have giant 10L jugs for sale which did the trick. We were happy to wake up this morning and find the water running again, since we both definitely needed showers. It's not all that hot here - high twenties - but it's very sticky.

So that's about it. We had big plans for today, but unfortunately my breakfast this morning must have had peanuts or something in it, so I'm not feeling so great, and we haven't gotten anything done yet. More later.

Since our last post, we spent 2 nice quiet nights in Delphi, the site of the famous Temple of Apollo. The ruins were much the same as many that we've already seen, but each site still has something unique about it. There were a couple of buildings that were interesting, and an interesting stone wall. The downside was that though there is a little train that supposedly runs between the site and the town, we're not convinced it actually goes to the site - we saw it several times around town, but not once on the trek to or from the site; so we ended up walking a fair bit more than we expected to. As a side note, we have both lost enough weight that our pants are too baggy!

Leaving the Olympic Stadium
Taken by Neil Carey on July 3, 2006.

Well, we've spent the last couple of nights in Olympia. The town there was pleasant, and the archaeological site was one of the best that we've seen in a long time, though we have some complaints about the way it's operated that I won't get into here. There's enough in way of ruins there to engage the imagination, and it's large enough that the crowds are only a problem in a couple of pinch points, like the Olympic Stadium.

Temple of Hephaestus
Taken by Neil Carey on June 30, 2006.
Probably the most interesting monument we saw in Athens.

Well, we haven't had much chance to blog since we've been in Greece. Unfortunately, affordable internet is a bit of a rarity, so usually by the time we've done our basic errands (check email, book hostels in next destination, etc.), we've already spend €12, and can't take the time to write as well

Since the last entry, we've visited the islands of Mykonos and Naxos, and have now spent 2 days in Athens.

Arriving in Lesvos
Taken by Neil Carey on June 19, 2006.

We arrived by ferry on the island of Lesvos (Mytilini) Monday evening, sans guidebook or map. Customs was the easiest yet, we walked right through, and as there were fewer than 30 people on our ferry, there was barely a line.

Mytolini appeared to be a nice port town at first glance, though we quickly tired in our search for a hotel (we walked by 2 without even seeing them - they like big signs on the roof, but lack in little signs by the door). We finally found a room, paid too much for what we got (it's a port town, and the hotel was right near the harbour - we didn't know where else to look). By morning, we realized that it's as nice a little town as it appeared - for 25,000 people, the traffic is insane!! We had trouble crossing even little side streets! At one point a nice local man helped us across... awwww. The town is also littered with vaguely marked one way streets, which made for a fun time getting out of town once we rented a car.

Please Keep off the History
Taken by Neil Carey on June 16, 2006.
We've once again entered the part of the world where mass tourism requires that there be ropes and signs and so on to keep you out of parts of the ancient sites.

Throughout our trip to Turkey, we've had trouble with activities not taking place due to lack of tourists. In E?irdir, there was absolutely nothing happenning, in Göreme, pensions were close to empty, but at least all the different pensions work together so they can still offer the same activities. Similarly, in Olympos, we booked our cruise with one company, but they couldn't get any other customer's, so they put us on another company's boat.

Well, we found them. They were hiding in Ephesus, unless they were Russian, in which case, they were hiding in Pammukale.