In which I start to post about my trip...

(Geneve, Switzerland) - This is the first of several installments about my recent trips. I am little busy nowadays, as I was gone for 3.5 weeks ... but I figured I better get something up lest I start to lose some of my extensive readership.

Nicola and I took a trip through Bulgaria and Turkey. Originally this was supposed to be a tidy little visit to see friends and collegues of hers at there summer house in Varna on the black sea, but it quickly morfed and expanded on both ends to become a more phantasmagoric version of itself. Both countries were fantastically beautiful and it was wonderful to see this part of the world.

Monday the 18th, we would fly the Sofia and spend 1.5 days there. Then travel to the quaint little country town of Koprivshitsa to see the Bulgarian revialist buildings there. Then onto Plovdiv... an ancient city built on 7 hills and first fortified by Philip of Macedon (Alex the Great's father). From there we would take trains across Bulgaria to Varna and spend 3 nights there on the Black sea. Then we would bus it to the Turkish Aegean and stay in Cannakale, seeing WWI battlefield Gallipoli and Troy, before heading along the south side of the Sea of Marmara and approaching Instanbul (not Constantinople... why did Constantinople get the works .... It is noone's business but the Tuuuuuurrrkkks) by the sea. 4 nights and 3 full days in Instanbul and we would head home.