Today, I joined another tour to Rila Monastery and Boyana Church. Boyana is a suburb on the outskirts of Sofia where the fancy people live as it’s in the foothills of Mount Vitosha. Boyana Church was built in 3 sections in the 11th, 13th, and 19th centuries, and the interior of these 2 earlier sections…

Yesterday, I went on a day trip (to Plovdiv and Koprivshtitsa), which required getting up when it was still dark(!) to meet my 8pm bus. Plovdiv is the second city in Bulgaria and is Europe’s oldest continuously inhabited city (I feel somewhere else has claimed this, I shall have to reread and check!) having been…

So yesterday (I started writing this on Tuesday) I packed up and left my AirBnB (which was lovely), but I think I may have broken the hob by excessive cleaning as it would not turn on last night! Oh well, luckily I had an emergency pot noodle which I could have for dinner and this…

Over the last couple of days, I have spent a lot of time planning the next stage(s) of my trip. I intentionally (repressing my NEED to organise tendencies) had not planned post Istanbul, this was because: (i) I have never been away for longer than 6 weeks so I did have some concerns that I…

Having spent Wednesday sheltering from the rainy weather, organising laundry, and planning/booking the next month or so (the homepage is in the process of being updated), yesterday I went on a pilgrimage. Last year, I went on (with my brother) a Secret Food Tour, and our final stop (by which we were too full to…

As the title of this post suggests, yesterday was Mum and Keith’s last day in Istanbul, and as they were feeling less broken (more damaged apparently) we decided to try and fit in the last must-sees of Istanbul. Our first stop was the Blue Mosque. We knew we would have to wait in line (for…

I shall start with the day’s health report. Both of my travel ccompanions claim to be feeling better (although they both sound pretty dreadful), and my throat hurts. We have drugs and are taking them whilst hoping for a speedy recovery! Now, on to more interesting things, today we (cheated) and took a taxi to…

Due to FlyOne having cancelled our original flight from Yerevan, which would have given us an extra day in Yerevan and departed at the very reasonable time of 9am, we had a panic rebook on a Pegasus flight on Friday 13th (risking it!) leaving at 6.35am. We had a 4am departure from the hotel (I…

Today was our last day in Armenia (and on this tour) and as a special treat we had a later start to the day as our first stop (the History Museum of Armenia) does not open until 11am. However, we decided to use this time to visit Yerevan’s “flea market” Vernissage. There was very little…

Today (I am up to date!) we headed into Southern Armenia (let us not mention proximity to the border with Turkey) including through the Azerbijani enclave of Kaki (internationally recognised as part of Armenia) and in the shadow of Mount Ararat. However, we started with a visit to the Cafesjian Centre for the Arts in…