The conception, planning, and start of the journey was in out home in York, in the United Kingdom. Read about planning, packing, and what we had to think about to enable this crazy adventure of ours.

A convenient starting point, a (literally) flying visit to Podgorica, on the way to catch a bus to lake Shkoder. The picture is of the wonderful Lake Kotor, taken from a previous trip.

Our first real stopping point, the town of Shkoder, with it's eponymous lake. From there, a few days in cosmopolitan and thriving Tirana cemented our positive view of this friendliest of Balkan countries.

We were very keen to spend a few days on Lake Ohrid, where we were not disappointed by the wonderful scenery. Three nights in Skopje taught us loads about this most intriguing of capitals.

Sofia was a jumping off point for the train to Istanbul - but that didn't work out unfortunately. We enjoyed our time in this thoroughly modern city, however.

Not originally in the plan, but we re-routed around Istanbul and decided to enter Turkey from the west, visiting Greece and a  few Greek Islands as well. This opened up some other Turkish options, in addition to the honey and yoghurt!

Turkey is magnificent, with so much more to offer than we ever realised. On this trip we crossed from west to east in just two weeks, visiting some incredible sights along  the way, but also opening up a wealth of future travel ideas beyond Istanbul!

With 4 full weeks here, we explored much of what Georgia has to offer, basking in the incredible scenery, effortlessly cool cities, and glorious gastronomy of this surprising and wonderful country.

So far we're only a few days in, and just starting to get over the culture shock of this country of extremes. We're here for 4 months, so I will probably split this page up a bit!