Spring Break Itinerary

Today John, Matt and I booked most of our hostels for spring break, so our plans are now more or less set. They are ambitious, bordering on crazy, but since most of us didn't foresee returning to the southern Balkans in the neat future we wanted to fit in as much as possible. Anyway, here's the itenerary, with a picture of each destination, so you can see how many of the locations you can guess.

March 26-27: Athens, Greece- Since we fly in on the 26th, this is actually a day and a half. Trying to see the birthplace of democracy over a day and a half may be our most criminal act, but unfortunately its not our only one. We finish up by taking the overnight train to...

March 28: Thessaloniki, Greece- Greece's second largest city has some good Byzantine sites, and is situated in is supposed to be good, mountainious country. In addition to the 28th, we might also spend the next morning here, depending on whether we take the morning or afternoon train to...

March 29-March 30: Skopje, Macedonia- Probably our most random destination, which may or may not have been added purely for the opportunity to get another passport stamp. But actually there are some good things to see here, and it will be nice to escape the bigger cities for a while. Next, on the night of the 30th we will take a night bus to...

March 31: Sofia, Bulgaria- Like most of the cities in the region, Sofia is supposed to have some wonderful scenery. But the real reason to come is to enjoy the highly reputed Hostel Mostel, where $15 dollars a night will buy you a triple room, free breakfast, and a beer in the evening. After spending a day here we will spend the morning of April Fool's Day en route to...

April 1-2: Veliko Tarnovo, Bulgaria- OK, so this is actually the most random of our destinations. But this little place actually has quite a bit going for it, in addition to having another Hostel Mostel it used to be the capital of the famous Second Bulgarian Empire. (Is that an "ah!" of recognition that I hear?) And according to Wikipedia it is often referred to, rather grandly, as "city of the tsars." I'm not sure what the Russians would say about that. Then, we will take a night train to...

April 3-6: Byzantium/Constantinople/Istanbul, Turkey- Our little jaunt will end with a bang as we spend 3 1/2 days in this ancient city bridging two continents. There's too much to write about, just know that its supposed to be an amazing place. And finally we'll spend a decent (though still probably insufficient) amount of time somewhere.

By the way, alf mabrouk (a thousand congratulations) to anyone who managed to guess even half the cities. You did better than I could have.