Friday, September 7, 2012

The Valencia Trip

Soooo, we are back from another road trip, this time to Valencia, Spain. Because all of us were quite busy this summer, we decided to do only a short 5-day trip to Spain, where Sabrina will be spending her Erasmus year.

We took off on Monday evening (after a day and a half delay, because of some last minute university responsibilities) and spent the first night on a petrol station in pouring rain somewhere in Italy. 

On Tuesday we drove to Monaco with hopes to admire some expensive cars and to flirt with the members of the Grimaldi family.  We saw loads of the former, but our ambitions to become the new members of the Monaco royal family disappeared after we still didn't manage to meet anyone important in our 2h stroll across the town. We continued to the classy city of Nice, which turned out not to be so classy at all, especially after a biker crashed into the back of our car and a petrol station vendor ripped us off by selling us a wrong package of fuses for the front headlamps (they are from the Balkans, they wouldn't notice pfff). We reached  Marseille just before midnight and parked in front of a non-existing camp, which address we found on the Internet. We ended up sleeping in a wood on the outskirts of the city together with another caravan. 

Monaco













Nice




On Wednesday it was time for a casual stroll around Marseille and some "minor" ultra-last-minute university responsibilities. Our plan was to leave Marseille by two in the afternoon. At 10 in the evening we were still sitting in a local McDonalds trying to upload some files. So we spent another night sleeping in our wood in outside the city and headed to Andorra next morning.









Thursday was pretty hectic. We drove nine hours to get to Andorra (trying to avoid toll roads, recession you know) and parked in front of the government office just to make sure that the car was safe. We were both impressed by the beauty of Andorra's landscape and the incredible organisation of the capital la Vella. We then drove another six hours to get close to Valencia where we were intending to sleep. Getting there was quite a challenge, because something got wrong with the car's gear stick and we drove the last part of the way using only 2nd and 4th gear (and pushing the car if we wanted to reverse).















We slept on a beach just in front of Valencia and after a warm bath in the Mediterranean sea reached the city centre on Friday morning and finished our short trip with the victory avocado.


*UPS*


Saturday, August 6, 2011

Day 19-20: Istanbul

There is only one word to describe Istanbul - CRAAAZY. It really is one crazy Euro-Asian town, with crazy traffic, crazy people and oh well, also crazy prices. When you get there, the heat and humidity hits you straight in your face and even a short walk uphill is a huge effort requiring regular stopovers about every 10 min.
We spent most of our time exploring the streets of the Sultanahmet district, the great bazaar and we also made a short trip to Asia, where we wandered along the streets around the Taksim square. We stuffed ourselves with as many different Turkish dishes as possible and made a conclusion that we're definitely coming back again.

Istanbul's cheapest durum


Inside of Agia Sophia


The crazy streets of Istanbul








The Galata bridge connecting Europe with Asia







They came all the way from the UK




Thursday, August 4, 2011

Day 14 - 18: Greece

We started our journey across Greece in Zagoria villages in the north, where we visted two remote villages in the middle of Pindus mountain range and did a short trek up to the Dragon Lake. After this we decided to chill out on one of the best wind-surfing spots in Europe, Lefkada, but this time just as tourists. After spending a night in a »very top-spot price« camp we continued our journey with a two-day stroll through the Peloponnese, where we visited all the touristy must-sees including Ancient olympia, Epidavros and Corinth. After roasting in Athens we had to cool ourselves in the turquise waters of Haldikiki peninsula and then headed towards Asia.


The Dragon Lake in the Pindus Mountains

The village of Micro Papingo


Attacked by a gang of horses


Lefkada


The Greek coast

Coming to Peloponnese


Ancient Olympia



On our way to Sparta



Very little is left of ancient Sparta


Trying Greek desserts in Neapolis



Epidavros



The Lion gate, Mycenae



Corinth