The campsite is nearly deserted tonight. The holiday season in Turkey seems to have ended and we find ourselves spread out over the campsite with all the facilities to ourselves all for 10,000,000 Turkish lira (£5). The waters look cool and refreshing after another hot day in the Landies and the nearby town of Ayvalik looks like the perfect place to stock up on some supplies and reorganise the equipment. Charlie has flown back for his brother's wedding in Guernsey and we have got a few days on the coast to relax and recharge after some recent hard driving.

Three weeks ago we left France keen to press on into Italy and to explore some more of Mediterranean Europe. Northern Italy came as a bit of a disappointment to us all with it's crowded towns and coast and seeming lack of fresh air and space. Had we had the time, I'm sure that we would have found this to be a false representation of the area, but with time ticking away, we decided to push on through to central Italy. A 500km drive found us camping next to Lago Tresimeno in Umbria and our faith in Italian landscape and scenery was more than restored. A perfect sunset and moonlit swim soon mended our morale and we were able to enjoy a walk around Perugia and a gentle drive to the outskirts of Rome the next day. Where the Romans were, we never discovered, but it felt as though we had the ancient capital to ourselves. It was only a brief stop though and by the evening we had made it to the eastern coast and our first breakdown. The ignition system on H237 failed us as we stopped at an Italian supermarket. The resulting kindness that the staff showed us will surely prove to be an enduring memory of the whole trip. Supper and breakfast were bought and made for us, a mechanic was summoned and by the next morning we were on the move again, all wondering whether our local Tescos would have been as accommodating. Our next move had to be to get to Greece, so another long drive was needed in order to arrive at the port of Brindisi in southern Italy in time to catch an evening ferry.

Group picture in Italy

Taken in Tuscany looking towards Asisi

Vehicle break down

Ferry to Greece

We decided to take the ferry to Igoumenitsa in Greece as deck passengers, unaware that both boarding and accommodation appeared to have changed little for centuries. There was a general stampede for the ship when it eventually arrived a couple of hours late and we managed to finally muscle the Land Rovers on board in time to find some remaining deck space to bed down for the night. The sea swell combined with dense diesel fumes made for a poor night's sleep but a spectacular sunrise and the thought of an extra day in Greece fully justified the decision of the night before.
We spent our first three nights near Parga, a half hour's drive south of Igoumenitsa, enjoying the clear Mediterranean waters and the seamless blue skies. A drive through the mountains proved to be an unexpected ordeal. The heavily laden Land Rovers battled through some steep climbs and while we found Greek driving both amusing and terrifying in equal measure. Charlie's birthday was celebrated with a meal out and a few celebratory shots of Ouzo. The monasteries at Meteora were an incredible site and well worth the effort of the mountain route. Precariously perched on top of sheer columns of rock some hundreds of feet high, five of the twenty monasteries are still in use and somehow manage to continue their tradition of devotion and prayer against a daily inflow of tourist buses from all over Greece. From Meteora we pushed on to Thessonaliki to drop off Jon at the airport.

Off roading in Greece

Landie with a local's 4x4!

In his absence we chose to make our base in the Halkidiki area of northern Greece and have explored the peninsulas of Kassandra and Sithonia extensively. We all greatly appreciated more time on the beaches and in the bars, recharging our batteries having crossed through nearly three countries in only two weeks. We had time to explore some of the inland areas only accessible to cars such as Land Rovers and to do a daylong boat trip around the Monastic peninsular of Agio Oros. The Orthodox monasteries have been here since the ninth century and there are still twenty flourishing there to this day. They provided an astonishing contrast to the hectic tourist areas of much of coastal Greece

Primative man makes a camp fire

Mark and Charlie looking good !

After Jon had been successfully collected from Thessaloniki airport, we had two days to get through the rest of Greece, cross the Turkish border and get Charlie to Istanbul airport for a check in time of 6:45 am! The drive proved very easy and apart from some patient explanations and discussions with border officials we had little trouble in making this deadline. We spent out first night at the sea front, a short drive from Istanbul and were lucky enough to meet an English speaking German-Turk home for a holiday. Helen and Rachel relished the chance to have a power shower and a clean set of linen when they were invited back to stay for the night. Us boys were left with a few local men to gesticulate our way through a bottle of the potent local brew before sleeping soundly in the back of the Land Rovers.

We decided to push on from the chaos of Istanbul's traffic system as soon as we had left Charlie at the airport and despite an impatient Turk deciding that his Honda could 'nudge' us out of the way (dented left wing to him, early morning chuckles to us) we escaped the melee unharmed. Yesterday we had an amazing time with a Turk now living in Kent who was home for a family wedding in rural Karacabey. He showed us his farm and took us for tea in the village, allowed Mark to drive his tractor and fed us with all sorts of local meats and salads in the evening. The high point came when he unexpectedly pulled his pistol out and fired a shot in the air. There was stunned silence and we all recalled the urban myths of travellers lured to the wilderness and mugged at gunpoint. The joke was of course on us. He laughed and we all fired a shot off into the bright evening sky. Sezgin arranged a hotel for us and haggled a good price for the rooms. With the local constabulary under orders guarding the vehicles we all slept soundly in proper beds for the first time since the eve of our departure - sheer bliss! We are now on the coast again, re-organising the vehicle lockers, making small repairs and looking forward to going to the ruins of Troy tomorrow.

Mark on a tractor

Turkish girls sing to us in a mosque

Jonathan Besley - Project Leader

About this site | Feed Back | Privacy Policy | Help?