ritorno in italia

Tomorrow Ashly and I head back to Italia from Bucharest, Romania. The whole trip has been amazing but we are tired, and I am really excited to return to Italia... where things are a bit more familiar and I can speak the language.

But so, so much has happened since I last wrote anything. We traveled north through Pamukkale... one of the most amazing surreal natural wonders I've ever seen but was may be trumped by what we saw just a short while later. Then we stopped over in Selçuk to see the amazing Greek ruins at Efes/Ephesus.

After that was Istanbul. Cailan met us there and we had good times drinking in carpet shops with the owners and then going out to some hookah bars. Then came Kapadokya... pictures will have to come when I get home... hopefully. A fairy-tale land where ancient civilizations built houses into the strange rock formations and complete underground cities functioned on a level par to Fraggle Rock. Spectacular.

Back to Istanbul. Bought some stuff at the Grand Bazaar that we scoped out a few days prior and then off to Romania. All of the aforementioned included at least 4 night buses... maybe more and I'm just blacking them out because the rides were so rough.

Now we just spent a few days in the Carpathian Mountains and Transylvania... although it's doubtful if the real Dracula (Vlad The Impaler) even visited some of those parts. We stayed a bit in Braşov and are now back in the capital.

And now back to Italia... non vedo l'ora.