We entered Armenia from Georgia, as the border with Turkey is closed. The country is not quite as modernised as its northern neighbour and has more of its people still languishing in those awful Soviet-era apartment blocks. But here, especially in the capital, there is a lot of construction going on so the signs are […]
Author Archive | Gareth Morgan
Dog Day Afternoon
They are always the bane of motorcyclists’ lives – dogs that run out at you and threaten to get under your front wheel. Over our years of riding the world our worst dog experiences were in the Peru highlands where the dog’s seemed more like wolves, were clearly not used to motorcycles coming down the […]
Turkey 3 – Central Plains
While not a standard tourism route (except for those who drive from Ankara to Cappadocia) it’s the vastness and emptiness of the country between Ankara and Erzurum that makes you realise just how big a country Turkey is. There may be 80 million people here but they sure don’t live out here. ” ngg_triggers_display=”never” order_by=”sortorder” […]
Turkey 2 – Cappadocia
It’s taken us a while to get here, 13 years since we first rode across Turkey, but this time because it’s en route from our ride from the Turkish Med up to the Caucuses we’ve made sure we dropped into Turkey’s iconic tourist spot – and haven’t been disappointed. The balloon ride is a must […]
Turkey – From the Aegean to the Mediterranean Coast
After an overnight ferry from Athens to the far flung Greek isle of Chivos, it was on to a far smaller craft (room for 1 car & 4 bikes only) for the last hour’s run to the Turkish port of Ceres. For the first time we had hassles getting our motorcycle insurance permits which cost […]
Greece
Yes they are nuts here. The government statistician is being pursued by the politicians through the Courts for reporting the truth about the government’s accounts to the EU, leading to the bail out and fiscal austerity measures that have sent so many of the 11 million Greeks to the poor house, currently 23% of them […]
Baffling Balkans 6 – Macedonia
We entered Macedonia from the shores of Lake Ohrid on the border with Albania and then road over the hill pass of Prespa National Park to Lake Prespa and on to Bitola. The country still has a big legacy to the communist era to overcome – horribly large, unkempt Soviet style apartment blocks in provincial […]
Baffling Balkans 5 – Albania
Back into the mountains – yeah ! There’s something about vast flats as those that comprise Kosovo, that is of little appeal to motorcyclists. But then from the border post into Albania through the hills of Valbona, to the ferry trip down Lake Koman, the topography instantly warms the motorcycling heart. Rock massifs and blue […]
Baffling Balkans 4 – Sorry Serbia but we’d prefer to go to Kosovo
That’s what we said when we inadvertently checked out of Montenegro & found ourselves at the gate to Serbia. Knowing that it doesn’t recognise Kosovo we returned to the Monetenegro exit and begged and pleaded to be let back in so we could drive 40kms to the gate to Kosovo. The Montenegrian Policia obliged, damned […]
Baffling Balkans 3 – Montenegro
Montenegro is another that is nowadays a member of NATO, the WTO and queuing up to get into the EU, yet in a referendum in 1992 it voted overwhelmingly to be part of the envisaged Greater Serbia. And the population is 29% Serb, 45% Montenegrins. Apparently the numbers fluctuate wildly between censuses depending on how […]
