Minsk, Belarus

We hadn’t done much (any) planning for Minsk so after a nice buffet breakfast we sketched out a bit of a plan, getting tickets for the opera, and then subway hopping to get pics of old Soviet buildings.

Minsk is a bit deceptive in that things look close but are quite far. First we walked over to the Opera and Ballet Theatre to get our tickets for the ballet for tomorrow. This looked close on the map and we could see roughly where it was from the lounge yesterday evening; but was actually a 20 minute walk.

We had tried to buy tickets over the web when we first booked the trip but had issues using our credit cards (I think the website only accepted Belarussian credit cards). Anyways the seat selection was less but we still got good seats for Anyuta (although not 5th row centre like we sat at the opera in Tashkent!). It was easy to pay in person, they even took Apple Pay.

Just down the street from our hotel, and before we got to the Opera, we passed by the KFC with a huge concrete Soviet facade. It’s one of the buildings I wanted to see here. I hadn’t googled exactly where it was, so it was lucky that it was so close.

Next we walked over to Victory Square. Took some pics, although with a cloudy background. Then we bought transit cards, with much pointing and gesturing as we didn’t speak Russian or Belarussian. At least we could somewhat read Cyrillic.

So we entered the subway. There were a couple of security people at the entrance but they pretty much ignored us once they heard us talking in English. We both had our day packs which they glanced at, but didn’t ask to look inside or anything.

The station wasn’t as photogenic as the Tashkent subway but I took some pics anyways. (The security folks didn’t mind this either).

We went five stops to Uschod. The subway was packed and I didn’t get a good look at the other stations. Uschod was pretty plain looking. Supposedly there are some great looking subway stations here, just not this one :)

We exited and walked over to the National Library of Republic of Belarus. Every blog or article I read on it mentions that the library's main architectural component has the shape of a rhombicuboctahedron, so consider yourself now duly informed.

I wanted to visit just to get a pic; while not of the Soviet era it’s still an unusual building. One of the blogs we read mentioned it had an observation deck, so we searched that out. The entrance is around the back side of the structure, not through the library. It cost 3.50 EUR for a ticket to the 22nd floor.

There’s a short walk up to the 23rd floor and the observation deck. The library is about 8km away from the centre of town, so there’s not much detail to be seen from the top, just a bunch of buildings in the distance.

There was a cafe on the 22nd floor so we had lunch there. It was really quite enjoyable, with cool music. We both had draniki, the national dish, which is sort of a hash brown with a topping. Heather had hers with smoked salmon, I tried it with caviar. Both were tasty.

We took the elevator back down, and then took a bunch more pics of the rhombicuboctahedron-shaped building. While we were lunching, the sky had cleared and the pics looked much better with a blue sky background.

Took the subway a couple stops back towards our hotel to Akademija, where the October theatre is. That’s another Soviet building I wanted to see. It happens to be directly opposite the Museum of History of the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus, which has a long name but also warrants a pic. It was into the sun so it didn’t work out though.

Because of the now nice weather (we took our umbrellas to start the day) we decided to walk down Prospekt Nezavisimosti the rest of the way home, about 5km. The architecture is great on this street, one of the main thoroughfares in Minsk. Along the walk we passed by Hospital No. 1 (the government buildings are all numbered here, ‘School No. 91’, or whatever), Belarusian National Technical University, Lido (where all the blogs suggest eating - we looked inside but it didn’t appeal to us), Museum of Contemporary Art, Gymnasium No.23 (I’m not making this up), Victory Monument (much better pics with the clear blue sky), Belarusian State Circus and the Labour Union Palace of Culture.

Then we turned down Lenin Street towards our hotel, passing through the very small old town.

Finally we got back to the hotel. I thought we had walked a lot but my phone said only 13.3km. Maybe cause it was in the sun it felt longer.

We had booked dinner at our hotel cause the forecast had called for rain at the time. Plus they specialize in steak, and between the ads in the elevators and the dry aging steaks in the breakfast area, I had a hankering for steak.

We thought it would be a low key affair but it turned out the restaurant is the place to be. The restaurant spills out onto the 7th floor terrace with a beautiful view of the sunset and the Svislach river which cuts through the middle of the city. There was a live jazz band which was awesome. The steak was done perfectly, which we had with a Chilean Malbec. It was a fun night.

Minsk, Belarus

We had a late afternoon flight from Vilnius to Minsk. Vilnius International is a small airport, with only eight gates, and not much for souvenir shops or cafes. They did have free wifi though!

The flight was only 35 minutes, one of the shortest international flights I’ve taken. Belarus is another country that’s recently relaxed visa requirements and is making an effort to encourage tourism. The visa still requires you to fly in and out of Minsk, thus the short flights from Vilnius-Minsk and Kiev-Minsk, where we might otherwise have gone by land.

We were through the airport in record time, less than an hour after touching down. It was a small plane (an Embraer jet), so there weren’t many other passengers. Before we went through immigration we had to buy mandatory health insurance from a desk on the left. (4 EUR each for 4 days, and they take credit card or Euro, but no tap). They scan your passport to skim your name etc, it’s very slick and fast.

Next was through immigration. The official only asked us how long we were staying. There’s no visa fee for less than 30 days for us (and about 80 other countries). The official was very thorough in checking all the anti-forgery things on the passport, like the holograms etc, even using a mini magnifying glass. But he didn’t bother or care with any of our past visa stamps or trips. We got a stamp on the back page, just like in the old Russian days. The internet had us a bit concerned about getting through immigration but it was very fast and professional.

Our luggage came out as we arrived at the conveyor. There was only one other flight that arrived around the same time, it’s not a busy airport (I think Belarus is in the bottom ten of least-visited countries). The carts were free too!

We had arranged with the hotel for airport pick-up cause it wasn’t that much more than a taxi. Our driver was waiting with a sign with my name, and we were off to the hotel. It’s about 45 minutes from the airport to central Minsk.

We booked at the Hilton cause boutique hotels aren’t yet a thing in Minsk. By the time we checked in and cleaned up it was almost 10pm, so just ate at the hotel restaurant. There were two options, the restaurant on the 7th floor or the rooftop lounge on the 31st floor. It was a clear evening, so we opted for the lounge.

The high top tables were all reserved (on a Wednesday!) so we sat at a couch and had some munchies. I had a local draft which was good, Heather tried their cocktails which were excellent.

Vilnius, Lithuania

Each of the Baltic capitals is slightly different, but similar enough that we were getting restless by the time we got to Vilnius. There’s a lot of grand churches and cathedrals in Vilnius. The old town is less distinct from the city proper here as well, which has pros and cons - you feel like you’re in a city rather than a disneyfied historic centre, but it’s also less photogenic. If I had time for just one, I’d recommend going to Riga, but that’s just my preference. You can’t go wrong with any of them :)

Over our three days here we saw the main tourist sites, including about a dozen churches, went up the Bell Tower of St John’s, and walked to the top of Gediminas Castle Tower.

We did all four tours of the National Museum of Lithuania, which was very extensive and in a great setting amongst the excavated walls of the old castle. Tour I covered the history, archaeology and architecture of Lithuania. Tour II was through reconstructed rooms of the castle. That took us about two hours, after which we had lunch in the museum café. We walked quickly through Tour III (weaponry, music) and then took our time with Tour IV, a special exhibit featuring old churches from Poland and Lithuania (which were a combined country around 1700’s ???). There were very few other people. The museum path winds around like an IKEA showroom and there was a possibility we might get lost and never find the exit. In the middle of Tour II you go up to the 6th floor observation deck which has great views of the city.

We also went to a couple art galleries, including MO Museum, which was designed by architect Daniel Liebeskind.

We had booked dinner for the three evenings we were in Vilnius, although as it was Sun-Mon-Tues the restaurants were mostly empty and we didn’t need them. We had the 4-course tasting at Ertlio Namas (pretty good), a 3-course set menu at Lauro Lapas (meh), and lastly at Sonnets, (our hotel restaurant), which we really enjoyed.

The weather cooperated for us here - it was comfortable and sunny the whole time. There was a heat wave coming in when we left, with temperatures going over 30C. (We’ll get the heat in Minsk and Kiev).

We didn’t get the Vilnius Card. The 72-hour pass was 35 EUR and we spent about 20 EUR on admissions. Unless you’re speeding through everything, it would be hard to make the Vilnius Card worthwhile.

Overall we liked our time here in Vilnius. We spent more time relaxing than in the other capitals as there was less on our list to see, there’s a nice vibe here to just kick back and do nothing.

Riga to Vilnius

We were up early to meet with the Traveller Tour excursion from Riga to Vilnius. We really enjoyed their Tallinn to Riga tour and were looking forward to this one.

It’s a 12-hour excursion, from 9am to 9pm, but it doesn’t seem that long. The drive itself is only about four hours.

Traveller Tours does a great job of arranging a varied itinerary. They also give you an overview of the recent history of the country. The guides are great at explaining the culture and not just a bunch of facts about each site.

We stopped in at four sites along the drive:
* Salaspils Memorial for victims of Fascism. This was very well done
* Rundāle Palace, it’s a common day trip, lots of tour buses stop here
* Hill of Crosses, a pilgrimage site, it’s a unique site
* Kaunas, a charming town

We arrived in Vilnius around 8:30pm, and our driver very kindly dropped us all off at our hotels (we were a five minute walk from the normal drop off point, but it was nicer not to have to carry our bags).

I had researched places that had a late kitchen, and so we walked over to Cozy. Our hotel is just off one of the tourist drags which was filled with people on patios and very lively, but without the partiers more prevalent in Riga and Tallinn.

Cozy was perfect for what we were looking for - small bites, craft beer, cool music (oh yah, and cozy, haha). It was a great start to Vilnius!

Riga, Latvia

It was another rainy day on-and-off, which didn’t matter too much as we did a bunch of indoor stuff today.

We started at the Latvian National Museum of Art, just outside the old town. It was pretty cool, I really liked the paintings that looked like a cross between Soviet propaganda posters and covers of Ayn Rand novels. There’s likely a name for the style but I don’t know what it is. As a bonus there’s a terrace on the rooftop of the museum with great views of the nearby Nativity of Christ Cathedral.

We used our rule of thumb about museum restaurants being pretty good and had lunch there. It always feels very formal eating at a museum, like I should be talking in hushed tones I'll have the daily special, please

It rained while we were eating but had stopped by the time we headed out. We didn’t do anything exciting or worth taking a pic for the rest of the day, just relaxed.

We had dinner at Muusu, about a two minute walk from the hotel. It wasn’t raining when we looked out our hotel room but was drizzling when we got to the lobby, so we took the hotel umbrellas, which were a light blue colour. (So much detail about the umbrellas! Must be foreshadowing something).

So we walked over to Muusu. We were seated in the cosy 2nd floor. I had the veal carpaccio, followed by a very good steak; Heather had a smoked duck breast and then the zander (aka pike perch). We’ve had other zander that we liked better.

It was still dusk after dinner so walked about taking some more pics. I needed a subject in one of the alleys so Heather walked down. The hotel umbrella worked well as contrast with Heather and also with the dusk sky. (tying up the umbrella story in a neat little bow). It’s my new lock screen pic.

Riga, Latvia

Tried to do a bit more structured touristing today, going to the sites listed in the Like A Local guide that we hadn’t seen in our random walking about.

Saw the Swedish gate, Three Wall Street, and a church near the Citadel. None of these was particularly interesting to us, with the added downside of tour groups and loud guides, so we abandoned the structured plan and went back to random.

Finally got into the Riga Cathedral. They have pipe organ performance three times a day during which you can’t visit, and the first couple times we stopped by it was during a performance.

The cathedral itself was okay, the main attraction for us was the museum in the cloisters with cannons and other armoury from the 14th and 15th centuries. Actually the pipe organ was pretty cool too, maybe we should have attended a performance!

We had lunch outside the old town, at Big Bad Bagel, based on a blog recommendation. The bagels were quite tasty, as well as the fresh fruit drinks.

The Alkīmidis craft brewery was just a block away (my favourite / only-craft-brewery-I-know) so we made tracks. Along the way was MiiT Coffee, mentioned in the same blog, so stopped in there first. I found the coffee a bit bitter to my taste.

We had the tasting at Alkīmidis, I liked most of them, including their rhubarb wheat beer, which wasn’t too rhubarby. I also bought a tshirt as a souvenir.

On the way back to the hotel we stopped in at a gift shop (Elkor) just near the Freedom Monument. It was the best place for souvenirs that we’d seen. Bought a piece of amber, cause that’s what you do in Latvia. (About 90% of the world’s amber comes from the Baltics).

Took a random street back to the hotel and came across the House of the Black Heads, one of the last sites on our list for Riga. Took some pics, but planned to come by later for the dusk lighting. (At this latitude, the golden hour lasts twice as long so there’s plenty of time to take pics) (Riga is about 57*N, slightly further north than Fort McMurray in Canada).

We had dinner at Restaurant 3. We were hoping to do their 5-course but they only have a 7-course tasting menu now. So another evening of overeating... The courses at Restaurant 3 were hit-or-miss — there were three that were exceptional, a couple that we didn’t care for, and a couple that were average. They had a wine pairing and also a mixed drink pairing (haven’t seen that before). I had one and Heather the other; we both preferred the wine pairing (the mixed drinks were too sweet).

After dinner walked over to the House of the Black Heads for some pics, and then back to the hotel.

Riga, Latvia

Our hotel had a great breakfast, on the top floor of the hotel. It has a glass rooftop that let in lots of light and that helped wake us up. Our hotel is mentioned in a few blogs as a great place for brunch, and they all said to try the pancakes, so like a bunch of lemmings, that’s what we did. (Actually, we did listen to the other options and then decided on the pancakes, so maybe not so lemming-like). The pancakes were great, a nice break from standard hotel breakfasts.

It was overcast today, which I actually preferred cause it’s better for lighting. Riga’s old town is very photogenic, even more so than Tallinn. Every time you turn your head it’s another pic to take.

We just walked around randomly rather than trying to hit the main things to see. Tallinn’s old town is smallish, about 15 minute walk from one end to the other, so in a day it’s possible to just walk randomly and see about everything.

We did start by heading to the Three Brothers, which is a row of three houses, each from a different century and representing different eras in architecture. Supposedly it’s unphotographable because it’s on a narrow street and difficult to get perspective. In the morning the sun is in the wrong spot too, so it’ll be an evening pic.

Next walked out of the old town towards the Freedom Monument, a 42m tall obelisk dedicated to Latvians who lost their lives fighting for independence after WWI.

Similar to Ashgabat, the old town is surrounded by neighbourhoods that are worthwhile visiting on their own accord. So it wasn’t a big drop off walking out of the old town, although there’s definitely far less tourists.

We then walked through the surrounding park, Bastejkalns. We recognized a lot of the plants and flowers, they’re very similar to what we have back home. I guess we’re in the same Hardiness Zone. There’s been lots of rain recently and the park looked great.

Nearby is Riga Nativity of Christ Cathedral, a Russian Orthodox church, so we stopped in to visit. It’s beautiful inside but no pics allowed. By my count it’s the fifth different Orthodox Church jurisdiction we’ve been to on these couple trips. (I had to look up the jurisdictions in Wikipedia).

Next went to Riga Central Market. It’s housed in four huge former zeppelin hangars. The structures are beautiful, perfect for a market.

We had lunch at the market, and then a couple local craft beers from Alkīmikis, which has its brewery very close to where we were walking earlier. Their IPA was excellent. Tried some baked goods from BakeBerry which came highly recommended from our guide from yesterday’s excursion.

Walked back to the old town and to St. Peter's Church. It’s possible to take an elevator to the viewing deck in the tower, and it didn’t look too busy, so up we went! There’s a limit of ten people in the elevator, I can see there being long line ups in busy season. We only had to wait for the 2nd group.

The view from the top is amazing, I took a million pics. I actually posted five of the pics, which is unusually high for me for a single location. It was cold with the wind (the high was about 13C today) so we went back down after about ten minutes.

We had dinner at Riits, just outside the old town. I had the shrimp and garlic appetizer, followed by grilled rack of lamb. Heather has a goat cheese salad and then the grilled pike perch (aka zander). Everything was really good. Once again we ate at a place where they were turning away walk-ins. (We’re trying to stay a week ahead for restaurant reservations). They had my favourite craft brewery from Riga (Alkīmikis) so tried their Pale Ale.

The lighting was amazing at 10pm when we left the restaurant to walk back into the old town. It’s great that the cameras on phones are so good now, because I don’t have to carry my camera around. About 25% of the pics I post are taken with my iPhone! Got my pic of the Three Brothers, not only was the lighting much better than this morning, there were also no other tourists.

It was still early for bed so we called into a patio bar for a drink, and then later headed home.

Tallinn to Riga

We got up at 7am, two hours earlier than we’ve been starting, so that we could catch our excursion to Riga.

When I was booking the trip, I debated renting a car so that we could see more of the countries and not just the capital cities, but I didn’t want the responsibilities of a car. There’s a company that runs excursions between Tallinn and Riga (and also Riga and Vilnius) that pick you up in one city, take in the sites between the cities, and drop you off at the other. So you get day trips and transit for the price and time of one. Anyways we booked both the Tallinn to Riga and the Riga to Vilnius excursions.

Our taxi driver had some trouble trying to figure out how to get into the old city, but we got there exactly at 9am. We the last to arrive and so got the front row of the minivan, which wasn’t so bad cause we’re small people and the view was better.

Our driver / tour guide was excellent. She knew all about the history and current state of Estonia and the surrounding region. We chatted with her most of the drive. Found out some interesting local details, like that mushroom foraging is a big thing in Estonia. Everyone has their own favourite secret place in the woods.

Made a number of stops along the way, Viljandi (with a crumbling crusader castle and strawberries as the local symbol because of a painting), Valga, which sits on the border of Estonia and Latvia (with a military museum where our guide gave a moving description of Estonian history from WWI to present), hiked (in the rain) along the sandy cliffs of Sietiņiezis in Gauja National Park, walked through the medieval old town of Cēsis (our favourite of the day), and finally the bobsleigh track in Sigulda.

We arrived in the old town of Riga at 8:30pm. It makes for a long day, but it’s not that tiring because of the frequent stops.

Our hotel was a six minute walk, so we didn’t have to worry about taxis getting lost in the old town. We stayed at Le Chevalier, which a lot of the food bloggers had mentioned as either a place to stay or go for brunch. So it looks like our breakfasts will be good :)

Dropped our stuff and rushed out for a quick bite. Went to a hotel-recommended restaurant (Key to Riga) which wasn’t that great (note to self - don’t ask hotels for restaurant recommendations!). It was down the main drag which was still pretty busy for a weekday evening. We were further south, so the sun set at 9:59pm, about 15 minutes earlier than in Tallinn. After dinner we walked around the square near the restaurant and then called it a night.

Tallinn, Estonia

The Visit Tallinn website has a page on ‘things to do on Mondays’ cause a lot is closed. We started at Kiek in de Kök Museum and Bastions, one of the few museums open on Mondays.

First we walked through the tunnels, which are a few hundred metres long. They were originally built to get around sieges and then in the 50s repurposed as bomb shelters. There were some morbid 50s-era posters with instructions on what to do in case of the city getting bombed.

Walked back to the start and then up on the wall and bastions. Some of the towers had been used as residences in the recent past, they would have been cool lofts!

Then we then walked to Kalamaja, a hip neighbourhood just outside the old town. There’s lots of high end boutique stores in old warehouses. Had lunch at a random craft beer place. All their food was gluten-free, which was common in the neighbourhood. I had a grilled fish and Heather had a hamburger, both were good. I didn’t know much about the local craft scene so they gave me a IPA by Põhjala brewery, which became my new favourite beer in Estonia.

Walked around a bit more. We had reservations at F-hoone nearby, so scouted out the location tucked away in the maze of old warehouses.

On the way back to the hotel picked up some snacks for tomorrow’s drive to Riga.

So freshened up and walked back to F-hoone in Kalamaja. Fortunately we had made reservations as the restaurant was full. The food was good - I had the steak tartare which was one of the better ones I’ve had, and Heather had the tuna tartare which was also very good. We split a couple more appetizers, which was a bit too much food. Tried a variety of beers (now that I had a favourite local craft brewery). They actually had a collaboration between Põhjala and Collective Arts (!), so I had to try it. (Collective Arts is a craft brewery from Hamilton). Anyways it was a fun evening.

Tallinn, Estonia

It was a cold and rainy day. We had planned today for museums as most places are closed on Mondays.

The museum we most wanted to see was Vabamu (The Museum of Occupations and Freedom) which wasn’t too far from our hotel. It’s really well done with an audio tour that takes you through the recent history of Estonia. We spent almost two hours there. It’s quite moving.

From there we went to NUKU, a puppet museum. There are some interactive displays. Here’s a goofy little hand puppet show by Heather (it’s a silent show, the audio is a kid in the background).

We had lunch at a little Italian place cause we had a pizza craving. It was run by a guy from Rome who had just opened a few weeks ago. The pizzas were excellent. He gave us an amaro after, just like in Rome. It rained on and off while we were eating, so we stretched out the lunch cause it was a cosy place.

We had an early reservation for dinner at a place just north of the old city, about a half hour walk. It was still rainy and cold so decided to cancel the reservation and try for something closer.

Most food bloggers had mentioned Rataskaevu 16 but we hadn’t been able to get a booking. Apparently people book three months in advance (!). So we took our chances with a walk in. We arrived just before 8pm, and at first they said they were full, then did some internal consulting, and then they seated us. Yay!

Dinner was excellent. For appetizers I had the salmon tartare and Heather tried the artichoke and fennel salad. For mains Heather had the whitefish with lentils and vegetables; I had the steak. We had a blue cheesecake for dessert. I also tried a craft beer, an IPA by Põhjala, which was very good. All round a great meal, we were lucky to get in!

It was about 10pm and the lighting was perfect for pictures so walked around for a bit. We came across a place called DM Baar which played only Depeche Mode music, so stopped in for a couple drinks. Later we read the blurb on the outside and apparently the bar is on lists of unusual bars in the world. The band actually dropped in a couple times when they were touring through Tallinn.

Tallinn, Estonia

We both woke up around 3ish from jet lag and game 5 of the Raptors / Bucks game was on so watched the text stream for the rest of the game. Thank goodness the Leafs weren’t also still in the playoffs otherwise we wouldn’t be getting any sleep. At least now it’s only every second night or so.

Fortunately it was the weekend and breakfast was served until 11am. We got down at 10:45. I had flashbacks to first year university and rushing down to the cafeteria just before close to get breakfast.

It worked out okay as it had rained all morning and then cleared up in the afternoon.

First we walked down to the Tourist Info Centre at the heart of the old city to buy our Tallinn Cards (got 10% off with our Helsinki Cards!)

Then walked around sort of randomly, aiming for the taller buildings. The first major site we saw was Alexander Nevsky Cathedral. As I was trying to take pics outside, I saw that we were right at the entrance for the Parliament Of Estonia. We then remembered that the Info folks had mentioned that the parliament buildings had an open house today, including climbing the Toompea tower. So we entered and asked around for the tower climb. We had just missed the 2pm tour and so got tickets for 2:30pm.

Used the half hour to look around the parliament. Saw their equivalent of the House of Commons. There were lots of locals visiting - it wasn’t until a couple days later when we went to Vabamu (The Museum of Occupations and Freedom) did we understand the significance of the building in their drive for democracy and independence.

So at 2:30 joined about 40 people and climbed up the tower. I suppose they group people because the spiral staircase is really narrow and this way you don’t have people going up and down at the same time.

The views from the top were pretty good. It was cloudy / hazy so not ideal for pics. It was also crowded up top. We went back down as soon as the last person in our group got up.

We were looking for a cozy place for lunch and found one near one of the viewing platforms. We both had their sausage and onions. Heather tried the mulled wine, which was alright. They had a decent-looking coffee machine so had an espresso and dessert and headed back out.

Wandered around the old city a bit more. Came across St Olaf's church, another one of the towers to climb. There was no line up so we got our tickets (free with the Tallinn card) and started climbing.

This tower was deceptively tall. Our legs were burning by the time we reached the top. It’s about the same level as the Toompea tower, but that’s located in the upper part of town and has a head start.

There were maybe 10 other people at the top, it was a good time to climb. Took lots of pictures. The sun was out but still pretty high, so the contrast between light and shadow didn’t work so great for pics. Oh well. The view was still amazing.

In our random wandering we had hit most of the viewpoints and towers, so started walking back to our hotel.

On the way we ran into Cathy and Jerry, the people who we met at dinner a couple nights ago in Helsinki. Actually they were having a drink on a patio and noticed us walking by, and Cathy ran down the street after us, yelling ‘hey guys’. I had heard her but assumed it was for us, as who do we know in Tallinn? Anyways we chatted for a bit, and arranged to meet up for dinner at 7pm.

So we rushed back to our hotel to shower and then back into the old city. This is one of the few cities we booked outside the old city, and we both agreed for future bookings to stay more central. Even though we were only a 15 minute walk it seemed quite distant.

Anyways dinner was good, and it was fun chatting with Cathy and Jerry. We were still slightly full from the previous night’s dinner!

Helsinki to Tallinn

The ferry to Tallinn wasn’t until 2:15pm so we had some time in the morning to visit Kiasma (Museum of Contemporary Art).

We got one last use of our Helsinki Card to enter Kiasma. We got our money’s worth for the card - it was 71 EUR for the ‘3 day adult city’, and we went to sites that would have cost 121 EUR if we paid individually. We should have just got the mobile version for 55 EUR which excludes travel cause we walked everywhere.

Anyways we both liked Kiasma.

Picked up our packs from our hotel and took a taxi to the Viking ferry. They told us to be there by 1:30pm when we bought the tickets, but it turns out they don’t let anyone board until 1:55pm.

There was a mad rush to board when the gates opened. The regulars all had their favourite seats / tables to get to, in particular those lining up for the all-you-can-eat buffets so they could maximize their eating time.

We grabbed a window table and then some food. After had a beer and caught up in my blog. Travel days like this are handy for blogging :)

The 2.5 hour ride went by very quickly. We followed the route in Google maps; it was raining / foggy most of the way and we couldn’t see anything.

It was about a 15 minute walk to get to the taxi stand, and then a flat rate 10 EUR taxi to our hotel, the Centennial, just outside the old city.

When we booked we weren’t able to get a standard double for all four nights, and had a superior double the first night. It didn’t have much feng shui. Judging by the emergency exit map, it’s just the standard double with the extra space behind the stairwell. It’s one of the few times that the superior room was a disappointment, usually there’s a huge step up. Anyways that’s for the tripadvisor review.

Our big thing today was dinner. We had booked into Restaurant Ö, one of the top restaurants in Estonia, for 8pm.

So cleaned up and walked over, about 15 minutes. We had trouble finding the place as the door isn’t clearly marked, unless you’re familiar with the restaurant logo.

It’s not a large restaurant at all, seating maybe 50. We were one of the last tables seated; most of the other groups were into their tasting menus.

There’s two options, either the 7-course tasting menu or the 11-course. The extras in the 11-course included eel, elk, and quail, and we were pretty hungry, so tried the 11-course.

Every course was amazing, definitely the best restaurant I’ve ever eaten at. My favourites included the elk, eel, and the breads, which were a course to themselves. The entire dinner took almost four hours! It was a splurge but well worth it.

We walked home, cutting through the old city. The old city has lots of character, we were looking forward to exploring it the next day.

Helsinki, Finland

We were slow to wake up this morning, from the jet lag and fighting off a wannabe cold, plus the weather was a bit gloomier.

We made it down for breakfast about 9:30. We were able to eat before they shut down the buffet promptly at 10am.

Walked to the waterfront, the same path as yesterday, to catch the ferry to Suomenlinna, an old sea fortress and now a UNESCO site.

There was a bit of drizzle as we arrived (later the sun broke through and it turned into a really nice day).

Suomenlinna is surrounded by 6km of trails, so we started at one end and worked our way back to the ferry.

The farthest site is King’s Gate, near the old cannons guarding the south end of the island. It took us forever to find the gate itself, we walked through numerous passages and walls and dead ends. There were lots of signs pointing in the gate’s general direction, but it wasn’t clearly marked.

We also stopped into a couple a interesting museums - a submarine museum, inside an actual WWII sub (our favourite of the day), and a customs museum.

Walked back towards the ferry and called into a restaurant for lunch. It only had a buffet, so walked over to a craft brewery place near the ferry. There were a couple large groups, so it took a long time for our food to arrive.

After lunch we walked back to see some more stuff, including the Suomenlinna church and the military museum.

We were fading, so grabbed a coffee. It wasn’t our day for food orders as they forgot about our order and it took a while to get our coffee.

We caught the ferry back to the mainland. While we were at the waterfront, walked over to Viking Lines to buy our tickets for the ferry to Tallinn tomorrow (we also found we’ve been pronouncing the city incorrectly, it’s ‘taleen‘) (later in Estonia, we then realized that 'taleen' is the Finnish pronunciation, we had been pronouncing it correctly).

By now it was almost 5pm, not nearly enough time to go to Kiasma, the modern art gallery. Instead we called into the Sinebrychoff Art Museum, a private collection just down the street from our hotel. The highlight for me was Rembrandt’s Monk Reading. The museum also had a temporary exhibition on the introduction of blue pigment into art (I hadn’t realized, but it wasn’t until the 1800’s that artificial blue became widely available to artists).

We originally planned to use the sauna in our room again, but found the heat from yesterday’s sauna bad for curly hair. Heather had to add a lot of extra conditioner to rehydrate her hair this morning!

We had dinner at Juuri, recommended by just about every blog we read. I was pretty hungry, so we had the 5-course tasting menu.

I can’t remember everything we ate. Started off taking pics of each course, but forgot about half way through. It was a lot of food. The first two courses were three tapas each (called sapas here). Each sapa was the equivalent of a tasting course, so it was almost like we were having nine courses!

The food ranged from very good to excellent (we loved the pickled herring as well as the dessert), although nothing was outstanding. The only miss for us was the chicken breast (one of two mains), but maybe that’s because we get such great chicken from our butcher at home (so that any other chicken tastes bland and/or rubbery).

Chatted a bit with the neighbouring table. They sounded like foodies too, and are also going to Tallinn after Helsinki, so maybe we’ll run into them at another restaurant, on the culinary version of the gringo trail :)

Helsinki, Finland

Both of us woke up around 3ish from jetlag, which was about the same time as game 4 for the Raptors vs Bucks, so I followed the play-by-play online.

Breakfast was great in our hotel, which was really busy with business types having breakfast meetings (or pre-meetings).

It was a nice sunny day in Helsinki, with a high near 20C. The forecast called for clouds and rain the next couple days, so we went on a 90 minute boat cruise around the islands, included in the Helsinki Card. The scenery reminded us of being in the Muskokas. The boat cruise was a good way to orient ourselves.

Had lunch in the old market on the waterfront, which was quite tasty. Browsed the souvenir stalls and bought a couple small things for our key shelf.

We then walked over to Ateneum, Finland’s premier art gallery. It was cool, including a Van Gogh. (The museum was the world’s first to acquire a Van Gogh).

Ateneum is on a plaza across from the train station with interesting architecture. Took pics of most of the surrounding buildings, lots of Finnish art nouveau.

Got back to the hotel around 4pm. We have a sauna in our room, which is fairly common. They take their saunas very seriously here - in fact, the word “sauna” is Finnish. There’s about one sauna for every two people in Finland.

Pushed the ‘on’ button and then waited an hour for it to heat up. (There’s a little sign in the bathroom with instructions on how to use the sauna - first step, put away your cell phone). Followed the rest of the steps to have a proper Finnish sauna experience!

Tonight we had dinner reservations at Shelter, a restaurant on the waterfront close to where we were earlier this afternoon. We’re becoming quite familiar with the route from our hotel to the waterfront :)

Once again dinner was excellent, and we were glad we had a reservation. For appetizers, we had octopus with romesco sauce and white fish ceviche. For our mains, we tried the linguine with chanterelles, green apples, and pistachios and the grilled perch with roe, new potatoes, and broccolini. Everything was excellent.

We took a different route back to our hotel for variety. The sun was just setting (it was 10pm). Our walk took us past the Helsinki Cathedral, an evangelical cathedral that features prominently in skyline pics. Walked up the many stairs to the top, took a bunch of pics. Got home and crashed.

Toronto to Helsinki

It was easier packing for this trip as we only half-unpacked from our previous trip. We were pretty much ready to go by Sunday, in case we needed to buy anything (we left on Victoria Day and most stores were closed).

Our flight to Amsterdam left 20 minutes ahead of schedule! We also made good time crossing the Atlantic and would have arrived 45 minutes ahead of schedule except we couldn’t get a landing slot and circled almost half an hour.

We got through immigration and towards our gate, when Heather realized she had forgotten her reading glasses on the plane. The KLM folks for our Helsinki flight were right on it. They called the cleaning crew and within minutes Heather’s glasses were on their way to us! Heather was pretty excited, although the lost-and-found people seemed even more enthusiastic about returning the glasses than Heather :)

The flight to Helsinki took about 2.5 hours, arriving around 6pm, and then we were on the ground for our next adventure. Everything in the airport was very organized and efficient. Got a (free) cart, got our bags, picked up our 3-day Helsinki Card, bought two train tickets, caught the “I” train to downtown, and finally grabbed a taxi to our hotel.

We had dinner reservations at the hotel restaurant, good thing because it was super busy!

When we researched Helsinki this past week, we realized It is quite the foodie town, and booked dinners for our three nights here to make sure we got into the popular places. One of the food blogs we read also had a review of Tallinn restaurants (our next stop), and we realized that it too is becoming a big food destination. We’ll be there over a weekend, so made reservations for Tallinn too. (I then got carried away and started making reservations for Riga).

Dinner was excellent at our hotel (their restaurant is called Kultá). We started with an amuse bouche of a Jerusalem artichoke soup (excellent, our favourite) and split an appetizer (an assortment of typical Finnish starters). For the mains, Heather tried the grilled Arctic char and I had reindeer two ways (grilled sirloin and salted tongue). Heather’s aperitif was also excellent, sparkling wine with cloudberry. I stuck to their craft beers on tap.

Toronto, Canada

This next trip was planned in less than a week, while we were trying to get ready for the Central Asia trip. We had booked our tickets to Istanbul in late November 2018. Later I found out that my next contract wouldn't start until July, and figured to use the extra six weeks in May / June to catch up on some DIY home projects. But then the Sunday before we left for Istanbul, Heather got an email about our KLM frequent flyer miles expiring this year. So, we had the time, and a free flight to Europe... tiling the basement floor could wait. As we once discussed with Marissa, our friend and occasional travel companion, no one ever said on their death bed, I'm glad I fixed up the backyard fence (although, I do need to fix the backyard gate before we leave).

We've talked about going to the Baltic states for a while. This is first time in a few years that I've had time off over May / June which is our preferred time to visit the area. Belarus and Ukraine are geographically close, so the trip extended south.

The Azores were more of an accidental add-on. We were looking for ways to break up the flight home, and saw a flight through Ponta Delgada direct to Toronto. I wasn't familiar with the towns in the Azores, and had to look up Ponta Delgada. It quickly evolved from a stopover to an 11-day stay on three of the islands :)

I've had to correct myself a few times when referring to Ukraine. It's Ukraine, not 'the' Ukraine. (It's okay to refer to 'the Azores' because that describes a geographical area). There's a good article here on the subject.

We've bought a guide book only for the Azores. We've found we've become less and less reliant on guide books (we didn't have one for Azerbaijan, which was I think the first country we went guidebook-less). Heather still likes them for the historical background they provide, but as far as travel advice goes, the internet's much better and current.

We've had a week back in Toronto, during which we've done a lot of laundry. I fixed up a couple things on the blog that were bothering me -- the pics now display a caption, and are sorted in reverse chronological order.

Toronto, Canada

We're back home in Toronto. For some reason, this trip seemed much longer than six weeks. We've been unpacking our souvenirs and been going 'oh yeah, I forgot about that' half the time. Good thing we keep a blog, so we can remember!

There were a lot of highlights, both ones that made my Top 100 and really cool experiences.

Here's the new additions to my Top 100 list and their current rank:

17 Temple of Bacchus in the Baalbek temple complex, in Baalbek, Lebanon
21 Registan in Samarkand, Uzbekistan
27 Darvaza gas crater, Turkmenistan
35 Great Pyramid, Giza, Egypt (I saw the pyramids 25 years ago, and this was already on the list)
36 Shah-i-Zinda in Samarkand, Uzbekistan
45 Great Hypostyle Hall in the Karnak temple complex in Luxor, Egypt
51 Kalon Minaret, Bukhara, Uzbekistan
54 Valley of the Kings, Luxor, Egypt
68 Heydar Aliyev Center, Baku, Azerbaijan
74 Hagia Sophia Museum, Istanbul, Turkey
77 Painted Churches in the Troodos region of Cyprus

Out of the places on this trip (Egypt, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Lebanon, Cyprus, Azerbaijan, and Istanbul), Azerbaijan surprised me the most. There's a lot of variety in Azerbaijan (architecture new and old, mountains, old walled cities, hiking) and it's still off the radar. Uzbekistan is full of highlights in the old Silk Route cities. Turkmenistan was the least touristed, mostly because it's difficult to get a visa.

If I was planning again, I would have included going to Abu Simbel in Egypt, a couple more days in Cairo, at least a week more in Azerbaijan, and planned for a week in northern Cyprus. (The rest of Turkey and more of Istanbul were always planned to be another trip, and the other places I think we planned about the right amount of time).

There was a lot of flying on this trip, but most of the countries don't have land crossings. Istanbul made a great hub for the trip.

We have a world map in the basement where we've pinned all the places we've visited. Every time we come back from a trip we feel like we've been to a lot of places, and then after we add the pins it hardly looks like anything. It's a big world to see :)

Istanbul, Turkey

On one of our previous times through Istanbul, we stumbled across an artist at work in his workshop, his paintings catching our eye from the street. He saw us outside and invited us in. (We only found out later he doesn’t normally do this when working on a piece; we think it might be because as we were admiring his paintings through the window his cats came up to say ‘hello’ and purred at us). Heather googled him later, and it turned out he’s a renowned Turkish artist, Irfan Yavru.

So today we went first to his workshop and then over to his studio. Neither was open yet, but it was also only 10am on a Saturday, I’m sure no self-respecting artist is up at that hour. He had a ‘contact us if we’re closed’ sign in the window, so we went back to our hotel for wifi and sent off a quick email.

Next we stopped into 3rd Culture, a store just down the street from our hotel. There were excellent photos on the walls from many cool travel destinations, half of which we had been to and the other half on our list. The owner came over and introduced himself (he’s also the photographer and a journalist). Chatted some more and found out his wife is from Leslieville (!), our neighbourhood in Toronto. Small world!

We bought a couple lamp shades for the bedroom, which were packaged in sturdy hat boxes. Guess we’ll have some extra carry-on :)

Stopped into a few more shops in the neighbourhood and then went back to the art studio again. This time the studio assistant was there, so the three of us walked over to the workshop to check out the painting we wanted. Irfan (the artist) was out of town so the assistant was also the friendly cat sitter :)

The assistant said he needed to call Irfan about the painting. Apparently there was an American buyer also interested in the piece. We could only hear half the conversation, and in Turkish at that, so we didn’t know if we would be able to buy it until after the call ended.

Turns out the ‘American buyer’ was actually Heather! The artist remembered us visiting a few weeks ago and expressing interest in the piece. Then when he got the email we sent earlier in the morning, he assumed that Heather was American :)

With all that cleared up, we agreed to buy the painting. The assistant asked us to return to the studio later in the day. In the meantime, he would prepare it for travel.

Had lunch at another great pide place (although we walked a lot today, so far we hadn’t ventured more than 10 minutes away from the hotel).

Later in the afternoon, there was a huge thunderstorm and downpour. We tucked inside a shop and didn’t get too wet.

Got back to the hotel mid-afternoon and did a big repack for the trip home. Over each leg our trip, we’d been accumulating souvenirs, which we just stored in left luggage in at our Istanbul hotel. Now we finally had to pack them for our airline flight.

Joined the hotel owner, Bulent, downstairs for happy hour, and chatted with him for a while. He really did make it seem like ‘a home away from home’ while we were here.

For dinner, we tried another mezze place, Ficcin Restoran, recommended by Bulent. It was a down a little alley, very atmospheric, and filled with locals. It was a great meal to finish off our trip!

Istanbul, Turkey

Finally we had a day to see Istanbul! Actually we had two full days, but we wanted to spend most of the 2nd day doing some shopping. Unfortunately, the forecast called for rain both days. Oh well. (We plan to come back to Istanbul at some point in the future and will spend more time in the city then).

Took the streetcar to the historical centre, across the Köprüsü bridge. It was easy enough to add some money to our transit card (the hotel gives the empty cards out to guests) and use the card. It took less than 10 minutes to get to the main tourist sites by public transit.

We first went to Topkapi Palace as I wanted to get some tourist-free pics here. Bought our tickets, including the extra ticket for the chamber rooms, and entered. There was no line up for security this early in the morning (about 10am).

Headed straight for the chamber rooms, which we had all to ourselves, so I was able to get my pics :) The rooms were cool, well worth the extra $7.

The rest of the palace was busier as the tour buses arrived. The Lonely Planet section for Istanbul was great. We actually used it as a guide on how to get around Topkapi (and the other sites here too), which is I think a first for us on this trip. Using a guidebook as a guide - what a concept.

Next up was the Hagia Sophia Museum. There was a 20 minute wait to enter when we arrived. We could have bought the “Visit Istanbul” pass, but I had done the math earlier, and it wasn’t worth it for what we were planning to see. In theory, the pass allows you to skip the lines, but you just skip the ticket line and still have to wait in the security line.

Unfortunately, half the museum is being restored right now, and we couldn’t get the large sweeping views of the interior, which I think is the main attraction. It was still somewhat cool, especially the view from the upper level.

Overall, I was a bit underwhelmed, which was the same feeling I had for most of the main tourist attractions we saw in Istanbul. The amazing street life here more than made up for that though! Istanbul is up there in the top cities for both me and Heather.

The Basilica Cistern was right across the street from the Hagia Sophia Museum, so we went there next. There was about a 15 minute wait to enter (it was also the only place that didn’t take credit card). The cistern was alright, a bit smaller than I had pictured.

We tried to squeeze in the Blue Mosque before lunch, but we just missed the window between prayer times, so wandered down the street a bit and stopped at a pide place filled with locals. (There’s a Turkish pide place just up the street from us back home in Toronto, so we knew pide was a kind of pizza). The folks there were really friendly. We filled up on pide and börek (a baked pastry filled with cheese, spinach, or meat). Had a coffee and baklava after (they went down the street to the nearby cafe to get the dessert).

We still had some time before the mosque reopened for visitors, so explored around the Grand Bazaar a bit. It’s one of the largest and oldest covered markets in the world. I found it a bit sterile compared to some of the other souqs and markets we’ve seen this trip. It was also pretty warm ‘inside’.

The Grand Bazaar is a bit of a maze, so we took a random street to find an access point to exit the market.

We got in line for the Blue Mosque, more correctly called the Sultan Ahmet Mosque. This was our longest line up of the day, about 30 minutes. It’s free to enter, but there is a lineup because of the time it takes for everyone to take off their shoes and go through security. Small plastic bags (like the fruit and vegetable bags at a grocery store) were provided for shoes, which was nice.

Once inside, we realized that it was also under major restoration. The entire dome is covered in scaffolding, so we got neither the view of the blue tiles, which gives it its nickname, nor the sense of a big open space.

We still had time to get to Süleymaniye Mosque before the next prayer time, so we rushed over. The research Heather did suggested this was one of the more impressive mosques to see.

There was no line up at all to enter when we got there. It’s a very impressive mosque. It’s hard to say if it would be better than the Blue Mosque once the restoration work is complete. But the lack of tourists made it a much better experience. The mosque also had ambassadors at the front answering questions about the mosque and Islam in general which we thought was amazing.

Caught the streetcar back home to our hotel. Stopped in at a few boutique shops along the way. There’s a lot of cool little stores in our neighbourhood (Taksim) and on our street (Çukurcuma).

Got back home and realized it was happy hour at the hotel (they host a happy hour on the weekend), so had a drink and some small bites before showering and heading out for dinner.

We tried to get into the same place as last night, but they were full, so tried a random place on the same street. The lack of any locals should have been the tip off that it was the Captain John’s of the area (that’s a former restaurant / tourist trap in Toronto. I felt bad that was the impression tourists were getting of Toronto). Anyway, at least the food was edible at this place, and the service and wine were good.

The next day Heather checked her iPhone, and we were amazed to find out we had walked 19km (even with taking the streetcar)! My ankle started to get a bit inflamed near the end of the day, the first time on this trip it’s acted up. Overall, though, it’s done pretty good to date. I’ve even been carrying both backpacks without a brace and with no ill effects. The cobblestone streets are a big help for engaging all the stabilizers, which is great for my ankle and Heather’s back.

Baku to Istanbul

Had breakfast, finished packing our bags, and caught our taxi to the airport. Baku International isn’t a busy airport, so got there only two hours ahead of our flight. The check-in didn’t actually open until after we got there!

Got through security (water allowed) and immigration, and then into the general lounge area. It’s the nicest non-business class airport lounge that I’ve been to so far. Granted, there’s far fewer passengers here, which makes a difference. We were almost disappointed to hear our plane called for boarding :)

It was a comfortable Turkish Airlines flight back to Istanbul. The flight was about 2.5 hours, perfect for watching a movie. (I finally watched the Lego movie; the cast of the Lego movie did the safety videos on Turkish Airlines, so I now get the inside jokes in the safety video).

We got through Istanbul airport in record time, under 40 minutes from landing to getting into a taxi. If we hadn’t had the farthest baggage carousel (yet again), it would have been even faster.

Traffic was excellent too, which meant we had some time to get out and enjoy Istanbul when we arrived. First though, the hotel owner offered us coffee, which we had out on the front patio. He then brought out a birthday cake for Heather! which was very nice of him. He had noticed her birthday when we registered with our passports.

Later we walked around the pedestrian shopping area, towards the Galata Tower. There was a long line to go up to the top (a two hour wait?), so we declined and continued exploring. There seemed to be another cool little street with shops and cafes filling up every nook and cranny down every street we turned!

By the time we got back to the hotel it was already after 7pm. The long summer day threw us off with the time... We cleaned up and headed out for dinner at a much more acceptable time of 8:30pm :)

We ate at Asmalı Cavit, a mezze place recommended by our hotel. We got seated upstairs, at one of the last tables available. At first we had flashbacks to the claustrophobic table in Tyre, Lebanon, but it turned out to be an excellent table.

The restaurant was crowded with mostly locals. The cold mezze was served dim sum style, with a cart wheeled up and the dishes served based on what we pointed to. The food was really tasty and pretty healthy too.

We also had a hot mezze, fried calamari, but we should have gone with the healthier grilled version.

Half of what we ordered was based on what the table of five beside us was eating. They were really friendly, telling us to ‘eat what we eat’ :)

Thought about dessert, but we were full, so got our bill and headed home to sleep.

Baku, Azerbaijan

Had breakfast a little after 9am, then headed out for a full day of touristing in Baku. There’s a lot to see here, and we could have easily have spent a couple more days just in Baku. Yesterday, we planned out the highlights we wanted to see.

First up was the Heydar Aliyev Center. It’s a building designed by the architect Zaha Hadid, whose work we first saw in Rome (the MAXXI museum). After we googled her work, we now have her buildings as one of the criteria for choosing a place to visit. (She died in 2016). In fact, we chose to come to Azerbaijan over Kazakhstan for this leg of the trip because of the Heydar Aliyev Center.

We took a taxi over to the Center around 10:30. Took some outside pics, then bought our tickets to enter. Unfortunately, it didn’t actually open until 11am, so we walked fully around the building to get all our outside pics. It was pretty foggy, but the fog provided nice lighting, it was thick enough that there wasn’t a glare in the background.

The building itself is amazing - it’s now my favourite in the world! It looks like it rose out of the ground. There are no straight lines in the whole structure.

At 11am we entered and walked up the great staircase to the 2nd floor. The curves and full white give the illusion of being inside a white infinity. We were lucky to be one of the first in, as we got pics of just us on the stairs. Later, the stairs were quite busy, and not the same pic quality.

The Center houses a museum (amongst other things), which is very well curated. We spent over 90 minutes going through, but could easily have spent a full afternoon.

The inside of the building is a continuation of the outside. You really do feel it’s the same building.

Took another taxi back to the old city. We were planning to take the funicular to the Flame Towers, but it was still quite foggy, so instead went for lunch at the same place as yesterday. Had a nice table near the window. Lunch was yummy, various kinds of grilled lamb, including grilled lamb liver and fat, which i really liked.

Walked over to the funicular. The fog was breaking (briefly at least), so we rode up to the top. It drops you right at the base of the Flame Towers, a considerably longer ride than we had thought. We almost just walked up, but that would have taken some energy (and time, which we were short of today). There wasn’t much to do at the top of the funicular, so we just took the next ride back down (1 manat each way).

The Carpet Museum was just across the street, our last destination for the day. It’s in a building shaped like a rolled up carpet, much like the Bata Shoe Museum in Toronto, which is in a shoebox-shaped building.

The Carpet Museum was very extensive (with 3 full floors), explaining the different styles in each region of Azerbaijan and their origins. It was interesting, but, by the end, we were starting to get out-carpeted.

Got back to the hotel and showered. We tried a different restaurant for dinner, Dolma. It’s in a basement with lots of character, and excellent food. A great way to end our trip in Azerbaijan!

Overall, we were super impressed with Azerbaijan. Neither of us knew what to expect, and, in fact, we didn’t even buy a guidebook for the country. Here’s my list of top things we did / saw in Azerbaijan (we were only here for four nights, so didn’t get to see much):

- Sheki Khan Palace in Sheki
- Heydar Aliyev Center (Zaha Hadid building), Baku
- Village of Lahic
- Walking around the old city of Baku
- Walking along the waterfront, Baku
- Maiden Tower, Baku
- Flame Towers, Baku
- Carpet Museum, Baku
- Eating anywhere

There’s plenty more that we didn’t have time for. Azerbaijan really deserves to be the focus of a trip on its own and not just an add-on like we did.

Sheki to Baku, Azerbaijan

Today was a lighter day. We arrived in Sheki yesterday with enough time to visit the palace and see some of the town, so all we had to do today was drive back to Baku.

It was just as scenic on the drive back, although we both slept on and off this time. It took just over four hours (without taking the turnoff to Lahic) to reach Baku from Sheki.

It was a beautiful day in Baku, sunny and about 22C. Walked to a nearby restaurant for lunch. Now that we know what to order (and picked a smaller restaurant), the food came out quickly. It was really good.

The rest of the afternoon we relaxed at our hotel and researched what we wanted to see tomorrow. Our hotel is a small flatiron-shaped building, and our room has a nice balcony in the pointy part, which was ideal for relaxing away the afternoon.

Went back to the same restaurant we had dinner at the first night in Baku. We were seated in a different area this time, and it was too well lit with white light :( Tried a local Azeri red wine, which we enjoyed.

After dinner we walked down to the boardwalk along the Caspian Sea. At 28m below sea level, it's the lowest point in Europe. There's varying definitions of boundary between Europe and Asia. I think where we went falls within Europe using the modern definition, which follows the Greater Caucasus watershed. This is our 3rd of the Seven Descents.

Lahic & Sheki, Azerbaijan

Breakfast only started at 9am at our hotel in Baku, so we didn’t get on the road until 10am. Our driver was there a few minutes early, and we were on our way to Lahic!

Aside from Baku, there were a couple other towns we wanted to visit. Lahic, about three hours west of Baku, is a village which still retains the old copper craftsmanship. Another two hours west of Lahic is Sheki, an old city on the Silk route with a beautiful restored palace. It’s similar to some of the places in Iran, which was our original destination for this trip until we realized Canadians can’t easily get visas.

The scenery on the road to Lahic changed from desert-like to lush green as we drove into the valley. The road itself was great, a divided highway for most of the way. After the turn off to Lahic, the road got a little narrower, and the scenery got even more spectacular. The valley walls are vertical striations, which I guess was caused from the earth breaking off into the valley and falling sideways. I’ve never seen anything like that before.

When we arrived at the village, we first we had to pay an enterprising old lady a couple of manat. (With the increase in tourism, she rolled a large rock on to the road and set up a make-shift barrier). Our driver hadn’t been to Lahic before (tourism is still a bit new here), so we just drove towards the village centre. There’s only one road in to town, so it wasn’t like we needed directions.

It was obvious when we arrived at the ‘centre’, really just the part of town where the shops were clustered. It was a very quaint village, with original cobblestone and stone houses. There were a couple places where blacksmiths toiled away. About half the stores catering to tourists were selling generic stuff, but the rest had some better quality products, including copper, tea, spices.

We browsed around, bought an old copper pot, and watched a couple of blacksmiths at work. It’s a very photogenic village.

Next up was the drive to Sheki. We passed by roadside stalls selling colourful pickled fruits and vegetables. Had some freshly-made qutab, a thin crepe-like bread with a filling, in this case herbs, from a stall for lunch. It was delicious!

We reached Sheki just before 5pm, with enough time to see the Palace of Sheki Khan. So we dropped off our stuff and walked over, about ten minutes up and down rough cobbles.

The palace is beautiful, well worth the effort to get here. Unfortunately, photos are no longer allowed inside :( , which must be a recent change since all the travel blogs I read before had nice pics. The stained glass and detailed wall paintings are awesome.

We walked down the main street a bit looking for souvenirs. Heather bought a hand dyed silk scarf (Sheki is also noted for its silk).

We got back to our hotel, really just a b&b, Ilgar’s place. Met Ilgar, who I’ve been whatapp’ing with the last couple months to organize the excursions. He’s an entrepreneurial guy who’s passionate about promoting community-focused
tourism in Azerbaijan.

Cleaned up and walked about 20 minutes to the heart of town to the restaurant recommended by Ilgar. It was good, although pretty touristy. We should have gone with our initial choice of a local place close to Ilgar’s.

There was a little dog that followed us around most of the afternoon in Sheki - to the palace, shopping, and then down to dinner. Heather saved some of her leftovers for our companion (a real doggie bag!), but we didn’t see our dog after dinner. On our walk over to dinner, one of the shopkeepers we saw earlier was laughing and joking with us when she noticed that the little dog was still following us around :)

Istanbul to Baku

We were up very early at 5am to catch our flight to Baku, the last leg of this trip. Our taxi arrived at 5:30am and whisked us off to the airport.

By now we were pretty familiar with Istanbul’s new airport and quickly made our way to the gate. Grabbed a couple cappuccinos and banana bread for breakfast and waited for our flight. Used the time to catch up on my blog.

My in-flight entertainment screen had a bug, and I could only choose movie # 6 from any genre. Ended up watching I, Robot, which was okay.

We were in the 2nd row of economy and walked quickly to be one of the first through immigration. Our flight was the only one in arrivals and all the ground crew and immigration folks worked their way to their posts as we arrived. I think there were more staff than passengers!

Immigration was easy with our evisas in hand. (Canadians can get a visa-on-arrival, but it’s an extra step at the airport if you don’t have one). Azerbaijan is really promoting tourism, and it looks like they take that all the way, starting with arrivals and immigration.

There were only four baggage carousels, so it was easy to grab our bags. Through the exit I could see our driver with my name on a sign, maybe 25m from the carousel, so didn’t bother with a cart :)

There was a bit of traffic as we approached the old city. An organized run was in progress (we saw the bibbed runners going by), and the week before the city hosted an F1 race; the race barriers were still up, blocking some roads.

The architecture on the drive in was amazing. Our heads were on swivels looking at all the cool buildings. We even drove right past Zaha Hadid’s building! (The Heydar Aliyev Center was one of the reasons we chose to come here).

Our hotel, the Deniz Inn Boutique Hotel, was in the heart of the old walled city, close to the Maiden Tower (we even had a view of it from our room). Only narrow alleys led to the hotel, so our driver parked at the closest approach and we walked the rest of the way.

We dropped our stuff in our room, applied sunscreen, and headed out for lunch. Picked a restaurant that rated highly on google, with a nice patio overlooking the cobblestone street. We didn’t have a guide book for Azerbaijan, and hadn’t done any research on food etc, so ordered randomly. The salad and mezze were good, but the hot dish took a while to arrive (we figured out later that it’s not a common dish to order for lunch).

After lunch we walked inside the perimeter of the old city wall to orient ourselves. There were lots of little cafes and shops tucked into corners and alleys. Stopped at a little cafe for coffee and snack. All the outside seating was occupied, but they set up another table for us in the shade.

The cafe didn’t normally take USD (but did for us), so we found an ATM and got some manat (the local currency). Azerbaijan seems to be well connected to the international networks, we never had any issues with ATMs or using credit cards.

Got back to our hotel and rsvp’d with our place in Sheki. We were going there tomorrow and had organized a driver and excursion through our homestay in Sheki. Given that there wasn’t car access to our hotel in Baku, I wanted to make sure the driver had the right phone number so they could call the front desk for directions.

For dinner, we tried a place (Firuze) outside the old city. Normally we don’t leave the city walls since it’s usually less atmospheric, but in Baku, the surrounding streets are the hip part of town, with wide pedestrian-only streets filled with locals.

The traditional restaurants in Baku are in basements, with tables in the old nooks beneath archways. Very cosy!

Dinner was great! Heather had done some research before dinner, so we knew what dishes to try, and all were really tasty.

North Cyprus to Istanbul

Today was one of the better transit days on this trip. Our flight was at 11am, so we could wake up at a reasonable time. The hotel staff was really nice, starting breakfast a bit early so we could eat before grabbing our taxi to the airport. The breakfast was excellent too!

Technically, this was a domestic flight, but it was a bit like flying from Hong Kong to Beijing. Still had to go through customs and immigration on both ends. The flight left 15 minutes early (I guess everyone was there, so they took off).

We flew into the old domestic airport in Istanbul, which was showing its age. It’s about an hour east of the city centre, on the Asian side of Istanbul.

The hotel owner came out to greet us warmly as our taxi pulled up. (This is our 4th stay at the Hotel Hamamhane so far). He really makes the hotel feel like home. He even gave us laundry pods for the washer in our room!

We put in a quick load of laundry and went for lunch next door. Had to wait a couple minutes for a table and then got seated. Lunch was really nice outside on the patio. Made reservations for dinner there as it was a Saturday; we didn’t want to venture too far as we had an early start the next day.

It was still early afternoon, so decided to walk into the historical centre, just to get some exercise. The streets were packed with people, it definitely felt like a city of 20 million!

Got back home, showered, and finished our laundry. The hotel has a happy hour on the weekend, so went down for a drink and small snacks before dinner.

Went back to the same restaurant for dinner. It was okay, but think we’ll start branching out more when we get back to Istanbul and have more time at the end of our trip.

Niçosia, North Cyprus

We had a small breakfast before packing up and heading on to Niçosia. We (now) saw all the signs to Apokryfo (our hotel) along the way on the highway that we had missed on our way in to Loufou because we came in from Avdimou instead of straight from Lemosos.

First, we dropped off the rental car at the Larnaca airport. (I originally looked for a rental agency that allowed drop off in Niçosia, but didn’t find anything).

We were about 20 minutes late with the drop off (the rental company just meets their clients at departures), and he had already left. The traffic attendant at departures was really nice; he even called the rental place for us, and less than ten minutes later someone came by and picked up the car. They didn’t do any checks for damage or anything (similar to São Tomé), just jumped in the car and drove off.

Next we went to arrivals to get a taxi to Niçosia. There was a bit of traffic as we got to the city. We got dropped off at the foot of Ledra St, a busy pedestrian street, and the most popular pedestrian border crossing. I finally got to use the backpack straps on our packs, as it was about a 500m walk to the border. (Otherwise we’ve just been using our packs in suitcase mode).

There was minimal passport control to leave South Cyprus. Walked about 100m through the buffer zone, then entered North Cyprus. There was no stamping of passports or anything to enter; the immigration officials on both sides were very laissez-faire about the whole deal (Heather even ran back to ask if we needed a stamp to fly out the next day). There were lots of day trippers going to north Niçosia, so that’s probably why.

Our hotel (Djumba Hotel) was another 500m from the border crossing, mostly on pedestrian streets. Our room wasn’t ready yet, so we dropped off our bags, got some lunch recommendations, and headed out.

We walked back through the pedestrian areas, filled with beach tourists on day trips looking for cheap knockoffs. Ugh.

Anyway, the restaurant (Saraba) was really cool, located in a courtyard just outside Selimiye Camii, shaded by flowering trees. They really know how to create ambience here (by ‘here’ I guess I mean anywhere outside Canada / US).

Explored around north Niçosia a bit, but the day trippers were getting annoying to us, especially with the lack of respect for being in another country / culture / religion. Büyük Han (a caravanseri) was okay, but it looks better in promotional pics.

We walked around the Arapahmet quarter, which had some really cool architecture. Half of it is in need of repair, but from the signage around, it looks like they have a master plan to restore the whole area. It will look really nice when it’s done. Even in its current state, it was one of our favourite parts of north Niçosia.

It was nearing 4pm, so we wandered back to our hotel, had a refreshing lemonade, and checked into our room. It was on the small side, but was functionally excellent.

We went for dinner at Sabor, an Italian / Spanish place, also recommended by our hotel. It was very busy on a Friday night, and we were lucky to get in. The food was good, although part of that might have been the break from our usual village salad and grilled lamb :)

Lofou, Cyprus

Another day, another set of Byzantine-era churches! There’s 10 churches listed as UNESCO sites; yesterday we saw three, and today we intended to see another five.

We got up a bit earlier so that we could arrive at the first church closer to 10am.

We saw Archangelos Michail in Pedoulas, Nikolas tis Stegis in Kakopetria, and Panagia tis Podythou in Galata. All were excellent, although I’m writing a couple days later, so it’s a bit fuzzy.

The drive from Galata to Kalopanayiotis was within 10km of the buffer zone with North Cyprus, and we saw a couple UN vehicles. We also saw the sea off in the distance. I hadn’t realized we were so far north on the island.

In Kalopanagiotis, we visited the Agios Ionannis Lambadistis Monastery, one of the larger sites. It was impressive!

We stopped for lunch in town and had some more grilled lamb, which again was excellent.

Then off to Moutoullas to see Panagia tou Moutoullas. Unfortunately, it closed at 3pm for the day.

Overall, we saw seven of the ten UNESCO churches, and we were glad that we did. They’re still somewhat off the radar (we had them mostly to ourselves). Due to the small roads to get to most of them, they probably won’t be on the bus tour route anytime soon. We did run into a group of about 20 traveling in multiple cars, but that was about it. The paintings in the churches reminded us of the rock hewn churches in Tigray, Ethiopia.

We got back home and relaxed before heading down for dinner. Fortunately for us, our final course didn’t arrive, so we had a much better portioned meal. (It’s a set price for a multiple course dinner, so over the three days we’ve gotten better at excluding some dishes).

Lofou, Cyprus

May 1 is a national holiday in Cyprus, and we had originally planned to just relax, walk around the village (they have a 1km waking tour!), and catch up on reading / blogging.

But after chatting at breakfast with the manager, the consensus was that the UNESCO Byzantine-era churches would likely be open. They were clustered around the Tröodos mountains, the nearest about an hour away. In any case, even if they were closed, it would be a nice drive.

The church hours were sporadic, but were generally open between 10am-1pm and then 3-5pm. It was already 10am when we decided to head out, so we quickly got ourselves together and on the road.

The car had about a half tank remaining, and I wasn’t sure how common gas stations would be in the mountains, so we filled up at the first gas station we saw. Because of the holiday it was unattended, but it had self-serve automation. Took a while to figure out the process, but we managed to fill our tank.

First, we visited Timios Stavro in Pelendri. The churches themselves are mostly small, with seating for maybe 30. They are painted floor to ceiling and most still continue as working churches (although some just for special occasions). The churches are from the Byzantine era, between the 11th - 14th centuries.

(I later googled about the Byzantine empire. At its peak, it stretched from Rome to Azerbaijan, around the Mediterranean, and Egypt. Between our Christmas trip to Rome and this trip, we’ll have covered the empire :) )

There was no fee to enter each church, so we just left a small donation at each one.

Next, we drove to Stavros tou Agiasmati in Platanistasa. We were on some very small roads, single lane around blind turns hugging the hills.

Finally, we saw Panagia tou Araka in Lagoudera.

I can’t say enough about offline google maps for driving. It would have been a much more difficult journey without it. We also had to cross-reference the Lonely Planet with the web to find the right places. There’s multiple churches with similar names, so if you search by name in google maps, you’ll likely end up at a different church. So we searched for the town, zoomed in on the map, clicked on the church, and then got directions. In some cases, there was also signage in the town leading to the church too.

On the way back, we stopped in at a random busy roadside restaurant. It was full of local families out celebrating the May 1 holiday. The manager was amazed that we were visiting from Toronto. (He and his family actually lived in TO for a bit). He took us into the kitchen to introduce us to his mom, announcing us as ‘tourists from Toronto!’. It was a buffet lunch, although we focused on the grilled lamb, which was their specialty, and was excellent. The cheesecake was great too.

Drove back to our hotel. We had intentions to do the walking tour of the village, but just as we set out, it started raining. We decided to take a nap to wait it out, but by then we had no get-up-and-go left, so just cleaned up and went down for a drink and then dinner.

Dinner was excellent again. We’ve kept trying to not over order, but everything sounds so good (and is good!)

Lofou, Cyprus

We had a nice breakfast in the interior courtyard at the Library Hotel. The temperature overnight dropped to 16C, it was very pleasant in the morning sitting outside.

Checked out and packed up our little Suzuki. We realized we never actually had a drink or sat and read a book in the library while we were here :(

We were moving to a hotel in the wine region today and doing some touristing along the way.

First, we backtracked about 5km to see the Neolithic ruins at Choirokoitia. There was only one other couple at the site when we arrived. I asked the rather boisterous ticket guy if they were open tomorrow (just to get a sense of what might be opened or closed on May 1, a national holiday here). They were open, but he said he didn’t want us to assume that other places would be open.

The ruins themselves are a UNESCO site, the first evidence of inhabitants on the island. It’s a 15 minute walk around and up a hill for the full view of the excavations. A nice little detour.

Then we got back on the A1 and drove to Limassol. Here it goes by the transliteration of the Greek name, Lemosos, which we didn’t know when we first arrived. Luckily we just followed google maps, and not directions to ‘Limassol’.

Our destination was the Lemosos boardwalk, which is at the west end of the sprawling city. We parked on a side street approaching the boardwalk, took a screenshot of google maps in case we forgot where we parked, and walked down.

There’s all kinds of cool coffee shops, bars, restaurants, galleries, and pedestrian walkways just north of the boardwalk. The boardwalk itself is really nice, and well used even on a weekday at noon.

For lunch, we drove about 15km west, to a beach near Avdimou, a Lonely Planet recommendation. At the end of a 2km winding single lane road is Kyrenia Beach Restaurant, on a secluded beach with nothing else around.

The restaurant staff were really friendly. We grabbed a table overlooking the beach with the sea air blowing through.

This time we remembered to ask what fish were local. Heather had the grilled sea bass and I had the fried small fish. Both were simply prepared and mmm excellent.

After lunch we drove up to our hotel, Apokryfo, in the small village of Lofou (population 300). There were beautiful views along the way of the hills and valleys. They could probably film car commercials on these roads.

Because we were coming from Avdimou, a little west of Lofou, rather than approaching from the east, there was no signage for the hotel. Instead google maps took us through back streets in the village. Twice we ended up in places ending in stairs or roads too narrow to pass, and I did some 7-point u-turns. Finally, we worked our way around the outside of the village and towards the hotel. The last stretch looked a bit iffy if I had to back up, so Heather got out and walked up to check. It was indeed the Apokryfo!

We checked into our room, which had great views of the vineyards in the distance. We also had a balcony overlooking the courtyard of the hotel.

The hotel didn’t have laundry service, so we washed just our small stuff. Jeans would need to wait until we got back to Istanbul :(

The sun was just about setting, so we went up to the rooftop to watch the last little bit of the sun. The rooftop overlooks the village, which is bowl shaped from the hills.

A couple of other guests were having sundowner, and we chatted with them for a bit. Almost all the other tourists here are from Europe, which makes sense given the proximity (and that they use the Euro here).

We had dinner at the restaurant. It’s very highly acclaimed, and deservedly so. Had some mezze, then some hot plates, and finally a goat dish. Everything was excellent. We ate far too much (again!) :)

Kalavasos, Cyprus

It was Easter Monday in Cyprus and most things were closed. We had a leisurely breakfast and then went for drive around the scenic villages near us.

Drove through Vavla, Kato Drys, and Kato Lefkara. We tried to visit a bee and honey museum, but it was closed for Easter. Actually everything was pretty quiet. The villages were definitely scenic; the drive was up and down and around hills, which was scenic too. Some of the roads through the villages were barely a car width wide. And a lot of stretches on the road were only one lane wide. We saw maybe ten cars the whole time on our drive, so it wasn’t an issue with oncoming traffic.

Drove down south for lunch at Zygi. There’s a handful of restaurants overlooking the water on the boardwalk, all of them booked out by locals because of the holiday. We luckily managed to get a table for two at the Captain’s Table restaurant. Ordered and ate way too much food as usual on this part of the trip. The food was excellent. We had a local white wine called ‘Ezousa’, which we had to try since it was so close to my name.

After lunch we walked along the boardwalk for a bit after all the overeating. The fishing boats were all in the harbour and made good subjects for pics.

Drove back to our hotel in Kalavasos. The village was setting up for a shindig of sorts in the main plaza, and it seemed like everyone in the village was there.

Had a drink in a cafe overlooking the plaza and watched the scene.

We had dinner at our hotel again, and this time tried their lamb. It was doused in a sauce, which I suppose some people like, but it’s not our preference. The lamb, however, was great.

Lebanon to Cyprus

Our flight to Cyprus wasn’t until the evening, so we had another half day in Beirut. We kept thinking we were flying back to Istanbul before Cyprus. The reason we actually ended up coming to Lebanon this trip was because there weren’t any direct flights between Turkey and Cyprus (for obvious political reasons). So, we had to fly through a third country. Lebanon was geographically convenient and also on our list of places to see.

Today was Easter in the Orthodox Calendar (of which I’ve now learnt there are three: the Julian, Revised Julian, and Gregorian). I wasn’t aware before our trip that the orthodox holidays were significant in Lebanon. There’s a large Armenian community here.

Anyway, it meant that a lot of things were closed today. We had plans to visit both the National Museum and the nearby MIM museum, about a 45 minute walk from the hotel. We figured even if they were closed at least it would be a good walk.

We took the back streets through residential neighbourhoods using Google Maps as our guide. It’s easy now to download maps for offline use. Driving directions are also calculable offline, but walking directions need the web (you can look up directions while still on wifi, but you can’t do anything else in maps or you’ll lose the track).

It was a much hillier walk than I had thought, also one of the warmer days here, about 26C.

We reached the National Museum, but it was closed. There were other tourists also in the same boat, including a tour group (!) which should have been more aware.

It took only a couple minutes to walk to MIM from the National Museum, luckily it was open! It’s a mineral museum (a systematic collection of all mineralogical species), which was really cool to see. It was way more interesting than we were expecting. Along with the minerals, it contains rare fossils (sourced from the fossil museum we saw in Byblos), including a pterodactyl! We ended up spending a couple hours at the museum.

Walked back towards our hotel and stopped for lunch at Kalei, the same coffee shop where we had dinner the other night. It was a good place to relax for a couple hours.

After that we picked up our bags at the hotel and caught our pre-arranged taxi to the airport.

Getting through Beirut International was long and tedious. First, the line up for the initial security screening. Check in was quick though. Next, the immigration line. This was the longest part, but it was a quick exit stamp once we got to an official. Next, the boarding security check. Finally, we were at the gate, about two hours after arriving at the airport.

Our flight to Cyprus took 45 minutes. We were able to prebook seats and, given how early we booked, were able to get seats 2A and 2B, which meant we were first off the plane and, more importantly, first in line at immigration. Cyprus is part of Schengen, so no visa is required for Canadians.

Got some Euros, picked up our bags, and exited. Our car rental guy (who was meeting us with the car) was slightly late, so we had a couple minutes to worry before he showed up. It was quick to get through the paperwork and into our Suzuki Swift. By now it was dusk and the mosquitoes were out in full force in the parking lot, thick as thieves, stealing our blood.

By 8pm, less than an hour after landing, we were on our way! It wasn’t the best way to get back into driving, at night, on the left side of the road, in an unfamiliar car, with road signage we couldn’t read, but we made it to our hotel without a u-turn, thanks to google maps.

We had booked dinner at the hotel at 9pm, so dropped off our bags, quickly freshened up, and went down to eat. Dinner was okay. I ordered the salmon; Heather had the sea bass. Realized later that the salmon wasn’t local. Oh well. It was a long day.

For those counting (Gerry, Tanya), Cyprus is country number 83 for me and 41 for Heather.

Jeita Grotto & Byblos, Lebanon

We had another excellent breakfast at Baffa House. It’s been one the better breakfast places on our trip - it varies and hasn’t included eggs every day!

We had another day trip today with our favourite driver, Rita, to visit the Jeita Grotto and Byblos (another common day trip from Beirut).

We almost skipped out on visiting the grottoes based on the descriptions we had read. There aren’t many pics on the web; the site was very strict about its no-photo policy (not exactly sure why). But, as luck would have it, on the flight over to Beirut, the safety video had images of the major tourist sites in Lebanon, and the Jeita Grotto looked cool. The lesson here is to always pay attention to the safety video on flights, even if you already know how to do up a seat belt!

Jeita is close to Beirut, about a 20 minute drive away. We arrived just after 9am. Bought our tickets and took the funicular to the Upper Grotto. We had to leave our camera and phones in the lockers, then we entered a walkway that led to the cave. The cave is filled with stalactites and stalagmites of all shapes and sizes. They’ve done a great job of the lighting and the pathway. It’s about a 500m walk in and back out the same way. Because we were there right after it opened, it was easy to walk along and enjoy the views.

Next, we took a short train ride (we could have walked in the five minutes that we waited for more passengers) to the Lower Grotto. Same routine as before with cameras and cell phones, and then boarded a small boat, which seated about 12 people, to tour the lower caves. This was cool, too, almost like a Disney ride except it was the real thing :)

As with the Upper Grotto, we retraced the route to exit. Luckily, we were there early in the morning; in the 10 minutes that it took for our boat ride, there was now a line up of a couple hundred people.

We walked back to the parking lot and met up with Rita. There were now dozens of tour buses in the parking lot. I can’t imagine the lineups inside the grottos. If you are traveling here independently, get here right at 9am!

On the way to Byblos, we took a short detour to Harissa, Rita’s home town. It has a nice cathedral and basilica. It was also a nice drive up through the valley, with great views of the Mediterranean.

Then onto Byblos. Rita pointed out the main highlights to visit and dropped us off to explore for the next three hours.

First, we went to the Fossil Museum. Lebanon is one of the best places in the world for sea fossils, which we didn’t know until we got here. The scientifically valuable fossils are in the MIM museum in Beirut; the smaller and more common ones are sold as souvenirs. I bought one, which came with a nice certificate, which included the Latin name. It’s an ancestor of sardines (and Eric loves his sardines :) - Heather).

It was around 12:30pm, so we figured we’d go to lunch early and beat the crowds. Got a great table at Pepe’s, ocean side (prime seats on the Mediterranean on the weekend). We ordered hummus, fattoush salad, octopus salad, and fried calamari. The local white wine was excellent, and the calamari was so good we ordered another! But, before it arrived, they walked around with freshly baked pitas. They were so fresh I got steam burns opening it up! We then filled up on the yummy pita and forgot to leave room for the calamari. Had some Turkish coffee to finish, with the full lunch taking over two hours, but that was kind of the point of why we were here too :)

After lunch we saw the Roman ruins in Byblos, which included a small fort with a tower you can climb for amazing views. We walked around the rest of the ruins, which was made better with all the wild flowers in bloom.

There’s also a souq in Byblos, but it’s mainly a tourist souq, with some atmospheric cafes and small bars.

We met up with Rita and then drove home. It was a cool little day trip, with good variety and great food. Can’t go wrong with that!

We had some time to relax at the hotel before heading out for dinner. Stopped for pre-dinner drinks at the same place as yesterday. The first time we went out here, we forgot that happy hour runs from about 5pm to 11pm. I tried to pay for our drinks with a credit card. The waiter kindly protested, and showed me the bill, which was under $5. Oops. We didn’t make the same mistake today.

We had dinner at Maryool, which was excellent. We finally ordered the right amount of food too!

Sidon & Tyre, Lebanon

Before we got to Lebanon, we weren’t sure if we’d need a couple of days to see the sites in Beirut. We had a full day of touring yesterday, plus another half day planned to see the city on the day we leave for Cyprus. After yesterday we didn’t feel like we needed more time in Beirut so day trip it was.

We booked a driver for a day trip to Sidon and Tyre, both south of Beirut on the Mediterranean. Originally, we planned to do a half day trip to Sidon, but Samer suggested we make a full day of it and include Tyre, a city with both ruins and a nice waterfront /harbour atmosphere.

Our driver from yesterday (Rita) was already booked for an excursion by a couple of guests at our hotel, so we had another driver (it was too bad since we preferred Rita).

It was a quick 45 minute drive to Sidon. First, we stopped by the Sea Castle, which was a small crusader-like fort just off the shore. It was okay, worthwhile as part of a larger visit to Sidon.

Next, we walked around the old city. We visited the Soap Museum, which was more interesting than one might think. Bought some soap at the gift shop, picked up a map of the souq, and then wandered around. For once, the Lonely Planet had something right: the map at the Soap Museum is a good map.

Unfortunately for us, it was Friday and most of the shops in the souq were closed. It was still cool to wander around the narrow alleys and tunnels of the souq. It’s one of the more interesting souqs from an architectural standpoint that we’ve visited.

Back on the road to Tyre (it’s pronounced like the first syllable of tyranny). We first drove 10 minutes past Tyre for a quick visit to Kana, where Jesus turned water into wine at a wedding feast. There’s a grotto about a five minute walk into the site from the parking lot. The views of the valley are nice.

We then drove back to Tyre, to the old port, which is a UNESCO heritage site. Our driver insisted on driving all the way in, which took about 20 minutes longer than if he had parked just outside and let us walk for 200m. He’s been driving for 35 years. I think back when he started out as a driver, driving all the way in to the sites was easy; now it’s just part of his routine.

Samer told us to try the seafood in Tyre. (Oddly, we haven’t seen much seafood on the menus in Beirut at the restaurants we’ve eaten at, even though the city is on the Mediterranean coast). Our driver recommended Phonecia, supposedly one of the best in town. We walked in without a reservation and got the last table, kind of buried in the back of the restaurant. We debated trying another place, but we were more in it for the food as opposed to the atmosphere, so we stayed.

We ordered the grilled sea bass, tabouleh salad, and glass of local white wine each. The wine was excellent! The staff was overwhelmed, and the rest of the meal wasn’t as enjoyable, although the fish was very fresh.

After lunch we walked around the old port town, which is very photogenic. They have some good accommodation options, but when I was initially planning I though it was better to have the five nights in one place and just do day trips.

Met our driver and then spent around 30 minutes driving about 50m out of the old city. Another 90 minutes brought us back to our hotel in Beirut. Our driver was easily distracted by his phone or with just about any bright shiny object; Heather said it was the first time she was genuinely concerned about arriving in one piece. At least we booked Rita as our driver for our next day trip; we probably would have cancelled our next excursion if it was the same driver as today.

We had reservations for dinner today at Mayrig (see yesterday’s blog where we wandered around from restaurant to restaurant looking for a table). It’s a Lebanese / Armenian restaurant, and the food was very good. We’re never sure of portion sizes here, so we usually just ask the waitstaff if it’s the right amount of food. Most times we end up getting the right amount. Our waitress at Mayrig, though, either upsold us or overestimated how much we could eat, since there was way too much food leftover. Oh well.