We were very lucky that our camping trip to Dorset coincided with a beautiful later summer’s weekend.
As well as visiting the River Cottage Autumn Fair for the birthday of Hugh’s biggest fan. We also enjoyed walking, a spot of mackerel fishing off Lyme Regis (and cooking the spoils), eating too much and sampling some of the local ales and rather too much of the local cider.
We arrived in Paris by TGV from Basel. A comfortable journey made all the more entertaining by the conductors attempts to seamlessly switch between German, French and English.
We spent the afternoon wandering around the 5th and 6th arrondissements and reading a collection of posters outside the Jardin du Luxembourg. The final night of our trip was spent enjoying a delicious meal with Dominique and Christian.
We enjoyed a great two days in Basel with Nicole and Christian. While we were there we explored the old town, took in the views from Bölchenflue, visited the Roman amphitheatre at Augusta Raurica, cheekily enjoyed a free beer at the Feldschlösschen brewery, took in a spot on the Rhein where France, Germany and Switzerland meet and crossed the Rhein by means of an ingenious ferry which used the power of the river to take us from one side to the other.
Nicole and Christian were determined that we sample a wide range of edible Swiss delights during our visit. These included the classic fondue, waldfest (forest party), Alpen macaroni, white asparagus plus a huge selection of Swiss cheeses and beers.
Our lightning stop in Munich began with an early arrival at Hauptbahnhof. We took the U-Bahn to our hotel but we were too early to check into our room so we headed straight out to explore. The city map we were given at our hotel had a short walking tour so after an excellent breakfast at a city centre cafe we strolled around the city taking in the sights. For lunch we visited the wonderful Viktualienmarkt where everyone was tucking into substantial pieces of pork. We tried the wurst and traditional Munich meat loaf. Both were very good. We also had a very simple but delicious sandwich of herring and raw onion in a crusty roll.
We spent the afternoon at the Pinakothek der Moderne. We spent a few hours admiring the four sections and we discovered that the IKEA BILLY bookcase is a design icon. For dinner we had no option but to visit one of Munich’s excellent beer halls. We enjoyed great food and very good beer at Augustiner am Dom (we also managed to squeeze in a visit to the Löwenbräu Keller.)
Our mammoth overland journey from the edge of Europe to Munich began at Istanbul’s Sirkeci station with the Bosfor Ekspresi. We decided to splash out on a compartment in the sleeping car for the Istanbul to Bucharest leg of the journey. However, on arriving at the platform, we discovered that the train only comprised of two carriages, neither of which was the sleeping car. It turned out that the sleeping car wasn’t running. Instead we were allocated couchettes and refunded the fifty-odd euros difference.
Sharing our six-berth compartment with us was Sven a Danish gentleman also on his way home from Iran. Sven was pretty miffed about the non-appearance of the sleeping-car though he proved to be very good company and he soon got over having to share a compartment with us. The Turkish/Bulgarian border at Kapıkule is unusual in that instead of the immigration officers boarding the train, shining their torches into the compartment and demanding ‘passportz’ the passengers are required to leave the train and queue to have their passports stamped. At around 3am we were summoned from our beds and after an hour or so we were entering Bulgaria. The next morning we woke as the train was passing through picturesque Bulgarian countryside.
As there was no restaurant car we tucked into the provisions we had brought from Istanbul (bread, cheese, apples, crisps and lokum!) Late afternoon we crossed the mighty Danube and entered Romania. A few hours later, after successfully acquiring a reservation for the train to Budapest, we were sipping beer at Bucharest’s Gara de Nord.
Our carriage for the journey to Budapest was new and very comfortable. We shared our six berth compartment with a young man on his way to Budapest to work on a Danube passenger ship. We shared a beer with him as the sun set over the Romanian countryside.
Arriving in Budapest we secured a reservation on that nights train to Munich. After leaving our bags at left luggage and having a spot of brunch, we headed to the Széchenyi baths. We had visited the baths nine years ago on our Interrailing trip and it was pretty much as we had remembered it – a maze!
We spent five hours steaming, sweating and washing away two days worth of grime before heading back towards the city centre and enjoying an excellent meal (we’d given up on budgeting by this point) before boarding the train to Munich.
Istanbul is definitely a city which we will visit again. We had just four days there but, during this time, did manage to visit many of the major sights such as Hagia Sophia, Topkapı palace, Sultan Ahmed mosque and the archaeological museum. We also spent an enjoyable day travelling along the Bosporus to the Black sea.
One of the cheapest hotels we could find in the city was across the Golden Horn, in Beyoğlu. The area turned out to be a great place to stay with wealth of characterful local bars and restaurants.
Istanbul is a great place for food lovers. We spent a large proportion of our time sampling the local cuisine. We decided to splash out one evening and have a ‘proper meal’ at a meyhane on Nevizade Sokak. Instead of using a menu the mezes were brought around on a large tray. Amongst all the usual suspects of taramasalata and aubergine salad there was the option of whole lambs brain which, of course, we had to opt for.
The six hour bus journey from Doğubeyazıt to Erzurum took us past snow capped mountains and through a blizzard! We were expecting it to be cold but this was something else.
We used our twenty four hours in Erzurum to explore the city and to eat two very good meals. One of Cağ kebab at Gel Gör Cağ Kebap and, yes, more kebabs (this time döner kebab and iskender kebab) at Salon Asya.
Arriving in Tabriz by train from Tehran the two men with whom we had shared a cabin insisted on showing us to our hotel themselves. On arrival at the hotel they demand that the manager charged us the correct rate and not the rate he’d quoted Rhian on the phone.
After a breakfast of yoghurt and honey we headed to the tourist information office where we met Elisabetta Bonio, a retired actress from Trieste. We shared a taxi with Elisabetta to the village of Kandovan where the houses are cut from the curiously shaped rocks.
As well as checking out Tabriz’s modest list of sights we also finally got around to buying a carpet (or two as it turns out.)
Our first full day in Tehran was a Friday, the Iranian weekend. As a number of the sights we’d planned to see were closed we decided to join the Tehranis on a walk in the foothills of the Alborz mountains above Darband. We enjoyed the fresh air and mountain scenery but yet again it was the people whom we met who made the day for us.
After visiting the Sa’ad Abad palaces we climbed from Darband to a mountainside hotel. There we met Ali and Hamed, displaying typical Iranian hospitality we were invited into the hotel for tea. After tea and completing a loop above Darband, Ali and Hamed led us back down to Tajrish square where they treated us to a delicious bowl of halim.
During the rest of our stay in Tehran we enjoyed checking out the National museum, Golestan palace and the bazaar. The highlight as far as sights was concerned was undoubtedly a chance to see the Iranian Crown Jewels. My favourite item was the jewelled globe where the oceans were made from emeralds and the land from rubies.
Finding good food in Tehran proved as frustrating as elsewhere in Iran. We didn’t manage to find anywhere selling the lamb’s brain soup for breakfast though we did find some tasty warm chicken liver baguettes and very good honey and thick creamy yoghurt breakfasts.
Kashan on the edge of the Dasht-e Kavir, provided us with a day and a half of distractions on our way from Esfahan to Tehran.
We took in the wonderfully restored traditional houses and the beautiful Hammam-e Sultan Mir Ahmad, explored the bazaar and chartered a taxi to visit the village of Abyaneh.
The biggest difficulty for us in Kashan was finding somewhere to eat. We never did find the tripe soup place recommended to us by Hazel and Isabella. Instead we were forced to rely on depressing fast food and rather tasty fig rolls flavoured with saffaron.
