To the Karpaz Peninsula

Kantara Castle Today we move on to Dipkarpaz Peninsula, which is the north-east tip of the island.  Google Maps suggests that it would be a 30 min side-trip to add-on the Kantara Castle but we already knew that they’re too optimistic with travel times on the windy mountain roads. We had taken things easy this […]

Read more

Two castles in a day

St Hilarion Castle We have two sights planned for today.  I thought we’d do one as early as possible and the other at the end of the day.  That way, we would avoid the worst of the day’s 36 degC heat. After an awesome breakfast on the rooftop, we headed out about 0845 on the […]

Read more

Bellapais Abbey

Getting from Larnaca to Girne Today we move to Northern Cyprus or the Turkish-occupied part of Cyprus, depending on your point of view, for a five-night stay. We had a choice of the 0845 or 0915 bus to Nicosia, in order to make it across the “border” to collect our rental car at 1100 on […]

Read more

Exploring by car

Trooditissa Monastery Today was available for some exploration beyond Larnaca to places that we aren’t going to later on in the trip.  I had hoped to get a rental car with the backup plan being going to Limassol by bus. We managed to get a car reasonably cheaply at EUR40 for the day.  We had […]

Read more

Chores then chilling

Attending to essential chores I continued to lie in bed till nearly 0800 despite my 0700 alarm.  Wary of the nearly 40 degC heat that’s expected today, I quickly motivated myself to get up and go while Kim continued to sleep. First priority was to get some EUR.  The city is dotted with many third […]

Read more

Killing a day before a night flight

Above:  The grounds of the Naval Museum. Killing time Just like in Istanbul last week, we have a long day to kill before an evening flight.  We fly from Varna to Larnaca at 2025.  The difference is that Istanbul is a big city with limited exploration whereas we didn’t want to get wet and salty […]

Read more

More minor sightseeing

It appears we’re finally in holiday mode, after three weeks into the trip.  We slept till 0840 and didn’t leave the apartment till way after 1100. First up, it was the ruins of the Roman baths.  We didn’t pay to enter but just looked at them from outside the fence. Next we visited the St […]

Read more

Minor sightseeing

We had a slow morning, leaving the apartment around 1100.  Our visit to the Naval Museum nearby didn’t work out as it was closed today and tomorrow, so we’ll have to go on the morning of our departure from Varna. We took an early lunch of various pre-cooked meals before walking to the Dormition of […]

Read more

Ride south to Bulgaria

Today we move from Romania’s Black Sea Riviera down to Bulgaria’s.  Specifically, Varna.  I had prebooked Mercado Sud’s service online for their only service today at 1000. I ordered a cheap ride on Bolt rideshare around 0900 and got to the bus station where we had a short wait before boarding the van around 0930.  […]

Read more

Mamaia, the northern Riviera

As we had our breakfast in our room, we both received a public service alert on the phone for high winds and some rain.  Yep, it was happening outside already and was expected to last till after 1000. We waited for the weather to clear further before heading out around 1030.  Today, we wanted to […]

Read more
Go top