We spent a few days in Erbil, one of the most ancient cities in the world, dating back at least to 2300 BC. Erbil has long been an important trade center, and It has been inhabited, over the millennia, by the Persians, Greeks, Romans, Mongols, and Ottoman Turks. It was already an ancient...
We spent two nights in the breathtakingly beautiful little historic town of Akre. The town was built on the side of a mountain range at the edge of the Nineveh Plains by the Kurdish Prince Zand in 580 BC. It was traditionally a mixed town of Muslims, Jews, and Christians. Nowadays, Akre...
If you read our post about the horrible experience at the Turkish border crossing, then here you will find the second part from the Kurdish side, where we spent another 6 hours. Maybe this little guide will help you to cross it more smoothly than us. After crossing the bridge, you will...
From our parking location behind Eruh, it took us two hours to get to Cizre. We did good shopping in Migros, and after that, we decided to take the cake with coffee and leave the town around 10 pm towards the Ibrahim Khalil border. It was supposed to be the easiest crossing between Iraqi...
We drove from Kars to Lake Van through several mountain passes (2100 – 2400 m) for the whole afternoon. Lake Van is the largest lake in Turkey in the Armenian highlands at 1,640 m above sea level. It is a saline soda lake (pH 9.8), receiving water from many small streams that...
Truck spare parts for our scheduled service arrived in Tbilisi from the USA late (probably because of Xmas time). The customs delayed the delivery for more than 1,5 months, and the communication with them was terrible and, most days, impossible. Ultimately, they did not allow logic...
Our first stop in Armenia was a beautiful monastery occupying a commanding position overlooking the Debed gorge. Founded around 976 by Queen Khosrvanuch, who funded the construction of the domed Church of the Holy Cross (Surp Nishan) at the center of the complex, it saw a building boom in...
Our first stop in southwest Georgia, not far from the border of Turkey, was a little town with a millennium-long history – Akhaltsikhe. It is situated on both banks of a small river, Potskhovi, which divides the city between the old town in the north and the new one in the south...
After a few days on the beach near Alexandropouli, we had finally finished our work and some little reparations, and we hit the road towards Turkey. We used not so busy Ipsala border crossing, but it still took us 2 hours (the Greek side was very relaxed; the Turkish side complicated, as...
It was very smooth at the border, without any customs check, we crossed the border between North Macedonia and Greece and entered the forgotten region of Macedonia forever associated with Alexander the Great. It’s littered with ancient cities, holy places, and natural wonders that...