After the day’s visit to Troy, we went on to Pergamon, now know as Bergama. We stayed in an old, stone, Greek house that has been restored for guests. Very cozy and quaint, it was also very drafty. In Turkey, being cold and drafty only matters for about two months of the year, and that is […]

Hundreds of years ago this was the playing field of the Illiad, Homer’s enduring poem/saga/story. It tells of a quite violent war between the Trojans and the Greek over a woman. Dozens of people died, just for one person. A week or so ago, we visited it. The ancient city of Troy. You really couldn’t recognize […]

We’re behind again. Darn. Alright, Istanbul… Basilica Cistern On our first day there we began a long hike searching for our hotel. Dad punched the address into his ipad and we started off. After a long time (seemed longed because we were carrying our enormous packs) we were very tired. Dad spotted a sign for the hotel, […]

Happy New Year! After eight wonderful days in the Bulgarian ski resort town of Borovets, we headed back to the capital, Sofia. Its name comes from a beautiful old church in the city, the Hagia Sophia, a name meaning, the holy wisdom. It is one of the best cities I have been to that I had […]

December 18 – 25 Crossing the Border in Santa Hats The Bulgarian border crossing guards looked into our train compartment and immediately started laughing and speaking to us in Bulgarian. Emma, Bjorn and I wore the santa hats that I bought at the Euro store in Athens. The guards obviously thought this was quite amusing and […]

December 13- 17 The story of our stay in Athens is the story of strikes. The transportation workers were on strike most of the week which meant that with a few exceptions, we had to walk everywhere we went. It was a good way to get some exercise. However, we walked from our apartment to the […]

On our second day on Athens we took the long hike from our apartment to the Acropolis hill. One dog companion later, we arrived at the Parthenon. They had rebuilt an impressive amount, and half of the ruins were new marble bricks. We hiked through the ruins, and came out in a large open area were […]

A week or so ago, we stopped in the small town of Wadi Musa. That towns main reason for existing was probably the nearby site of Petra. The second day there we got the incredibly nice people working at the hotel to drive us to the ancient city. The walk was long and strenuous, but very […]

We arrived in Plakias in our rental car which we got in Heraklion. At first we had a little trouble finding an apartment to stay. Since it was winter most of the hotels and apartments were closed, and Bjorn and I wanted a place by the beach. We finally got a place a little bit […]

December 8, 2010 After a week or so of travel we’ve landed on the southern coast of Crete. I’m looking out at rugged mountains and calm seas. The unseasonable warm temperatures make the Christmas decorations in the stores here seem very out of place. Ten days ago, we left Dahab reluctantly after an eleven day stay. […]

For Dahab, the four days in Hurghada was a great act to follow. Hurghada is on the Red Sea, and diving is done there, but the reefs have been poorly cared for, reportedly leaving poor diving. It is a large, strung-out coastal city that has been recently developed, and consists mainly of large, package-tour resorts, […]

November 25 Our day was quite unlike any other Thanksgiving Day. We woke early and after a breakfast of french toast, we put on our swim suits and walked a half hour down the beach to the Bedouin Divers. We realized this would be a different dive experience because instead of putting our gear on a […]

(pretty cool title, huh?) So, after another enormous writing hiatus, we have an abundance of time to write and post in the small tourist town of Dahab. It’s a great place, with nice beaches and a comfortable atmosphere. But as usual, I am getting ahead of myself. I’ll start the day we left the cruise […]

November 14, 15 On the 14th we went to go see the Valley of the Kings. We saw Seti II’s, Tuthmosis III’s, and Mintuhirkopshep’s tombs. The first tomb we saw was Tuthmosis’s. First you had to climb up a long staircase to get to the tomb. Then when you got to the tomb you had […]

I dubbed our cruise “The Mystery Cruise”. Everything was a mystery: the price, the schedule and the conversation. From the moment we arrived to the moment we left, we never quite knew what was happening. Most of our confusion arose from the fact that all the other passengers were Russian and on a package tour. When […]

On the night of the fourth, we boarded the night train to Aswan. We originally had planned on taking a day train, the night train differential costing much more than the price of a nice hotel, but we found out that foreign tourists were not allowed on the day train. The ostensible reason given is that […]

This is my second trip to Cairo, my first being 33 years ago as a college student. On that trip, it was my first time out of the country, not including short trips into Canada. For that matter, it was my first time on an airplane. It was a bit of a shock to someone who […]

Yes. We did leave London on the 31st of October, so this post is a bit stale. However, the last 10 days have been busy with seeing the sites. Late will have to suffice. The original plan was to arrive in London late in the evening, and then fly off the next afternoon for Cairo. […]

A few days ago we took a cab across Cairo to Giza. The first thing that I noticed was the way the city came right up to the pyramids. Then I realized how huge they were. They were really amazing. We saw the sphinx first. I think the paws were waaay to long. The three pyramids […]

We’ve been so busy traveling that we’ve neglected our blog for the past few weeks. Here are some of Emma’s journal entries to get you all a little up to date. October 24, 25, 26 Today we took a bus to Fez. When we got there we went into the Medina. There were a bunch of […]