August 30th, here we come!!!

Plans are in place for our next Euro adventure!

We changed our Eastern Europe plans last fall to Spain plans due to the timing of the birth of our 3rd grandchild. We pushed our Eastern Europe trip back to fall 2012, which is right around the corner.

All of our arrangements for flights, and lodging are in place, and we are counting the days (53).

Tom pulled out our new backpacks today and tried some packing configurations for his. Yesterday  he ordered a Patagonia jacket  in preparation for the possible chilly weather at the beginning of our trip. I have to find a couple pair of travel pants and a new camera bag and then should be good to go.

Our adventure begins on August 30 with our flight to Budapest, Hungary. We will spend a week in Budapest and Eger, Hungary and then take a night train to Sighisora, Romania  (birthplace of Vlad the Impaler... inspiration for Dracula). After Sighisora we move just a short distance to Brasov, Romania.   ( Both cities are in Transylvania)After our week in Romania we will move on to Bulgaria. We have a week in a timeshare in Bulgaria but we only intend to spend five days there enjoying a little down time in the countryside before we catch a night train to Istanbul, Turkey. We will be in Istanbul for 5 days and then we will take a night bus to Cappodocia for a hot air balloon ride and our stay in a "fairy chimney" cave! Our next stop (after another night bus) will be Pamukkale, (site of the ruins of Heiropolis, a thermal spa established at the end of the 2nd century B.C.) then on to our final destination Selcuk, Turkey. After we explore the ruins of the ancient Greek city, Ephesus, we will return to Istanbul for the night before we fly home.... 5 weeks to the day after we leave.

The money situation on this trip will be a change from last year. We were "Euro" spoiled on our last holiday. Traveling to multiple countries and using one currency for a large part of the time made things easy in the money spending department. During our trip in 2009 we used British Pounds, Czech Corona, and Croatian Kunas in addition to Euros. In 2011 we traveled to Morocco for a day and used dirhams, otherwise we used Euros the entire trip. This fall we will start with Hungarian Forint, change to Romanian Leu, and Bulgarian Lev before we move on to Turkish Lira. To complicate matters, it seems although none of these countries have joined the European Union yet, some places sometimes accept Euros.

Eastern Europe, what to pack, what we'll do, how excited we are... definitely the hot topic of conversation at our house.... for the next 53 days for sure.