It was built soon after Vasco da Gama’s brave expedition to discover a sea route to India.

I stayed in Tbilisi for 4 months and will probably return later in the year.

While there’s a lot of anti-Russia graffiti in Tbilisi, there are also many tasteful murals:

Many Russians are fleeing the sanctions and Putin’s mobilisation of conscripts. They filled up nearly every hostel and most guest houses in Tbilisi. So I visited the nearby town of Mtskheta. While the accommodation is cheaper, the supermarkets did not have enough variety to keep me happy in the long term. So I only spent…

In 86 days I cycled 4,976 km in 11 countries (Counting Kosovo as a seperate country and not counting a very brief visit to Austria). My costs were $1,000/month, excluding flights, insurance and wear and tear. Greece was the most expensive while North Macedonia was the cheapest. Accommodation was by far my largest cost, as…

I took the train to Thessaloniki and stayed in the Southern part of the city for nearly two weeks. It was very late in the tourist season.

I took the train from Kalambaka to Athens. This meant a 23 hour wait for a train on which bicycles were allowed as checked luggage. After some sightseeing, I crossed to Salamina Island, hoping to reach Corinth to see the canal. The map said a ferry could take me back to the mainland, but the…

So far the roads in Greece were extremely quiet. Economic slump exacerbated by high fuel prices ??