Days: 17th -18th JulyIn 2 days Michael drove well over 1,500kms from Klenova to Istambul. Crossing 8 countries on mostly good quality roads.
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A straight forward drive with a short night in Belgrade. Our arrival in Belgrade in the middle of the night was somewhat an adventure. With no plan of Belgrade and no information about Serbia, Finding our accommodation in the middle of the old town was lengthy and a little unsettling. Whenever you read “old town” in any eastern eruopean or ex-soviet republic, there is 95% chance this means derelict. Arriving at night in a shabby part of town makes it looks 5x worse. I can remember Michael wondering what he signed for. Both worried for our little Doris. Will we see her on the next day? Will she still have her tyres (we have 5 spares in the back so, somewhat less worried)? The car is parked in front of the red carpet of the hostel. Would this be enough? Both of us starting to take the worrying daddy syndrome.
The night passed and…nothing happened. Walking around town to pick-up some free wifi signal we found a city very different from the day before, still shabby but definitely worth paying a visit to. Unfortunately, the true start of our rally awaits, Istanbul. Almost a 1,000kms to be done in a day.
Serbia goes w/out any issues. Same with most of Bulgaria, except around Sophia and around an error of navigation taking us a small road. On that occasion we get a glance of our first post-Soviet era country. Huge and rusty factories, cities built in one mould, pot-hole roads and glorious statues celebrating the glory of farm workers.
After a quick border crossing in Erdyne, we are now in Turkey. Arriving in Istanbul, we feel the hustle and bustle of city with 12M inhabitants.
Thanks to a brilliant navigator (aka Google maps) we settle quickly in our hostel, steps away from the blue mosque and Hagia Sophia.
Quote of the day
Michael, driving through Croatia: I never thought it would be That empty that quickly
What I take away from today
N/A, we didn’t stop much only for refuelling. Very happy to have a driving machine as team mate. 2 x 13hrs driving is well beyond my capacities.
Tomorrow
Our first day of rest is promising to be hectic.
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