Greece/Turkey Countdown

In just over three weeks, we will be leaving on another five week adventure, this time in Greece, with (we hope), a short visit to Turkey at the end. This trip has been a dream of ours for many years, and about a year ago we decided it would be a wonderful way to celebrate our 40th wedding anniversary. Airline tickets were booked, and the planning began. Unfortunately soon after that the economic troubles became worse in Greece, followed by the refugee situation, which was then followed by the terrorist activity in Turkey. We had some doubts about whether to go ahead with the trip, but our flights were great and we just couldn't bring ourselves to cancel. We are monitoring the situation in Turkey, as that is our main concern, since we fly home from Istanbul. 
This will not be a "walking holiday", but we do intend to hike and enjoy the trails on some of the Greek islands. We will have our cameras with us, and hope to post some great photos along the way! We will be starting in Athens, where we have several days to see the sights before getting picked up for a five day tour of the mainland. Sites we will see on the tour include Corinth Canal, Theater of Epidaurus, Mycenae, Olympia, Thermopylae, Delphi and Meteora. We are really thrilled that our Danish friends, Erik and Margit, will be joining us in Athens and on this tour! We have not seen them since our French walk in 2014, so we have a lot of catching up to do! Once the tour is over we will be saying goodbye to them, and heading off to do some island hopping - Sifnos, Santorini, Naxos, Crete, and Samos. The plan after that is to take a ferry to Kusadasi, Turkey and spend some time in Ephesus, after which we hope to fly to Istanbul and spend the last five days taking in the sights there. 
We find that this blog is a good way to keep in touch with family and friends, as well as keeping a record of the memorable events that happen on the trip, since we don't keep a journal when we travel. We look forward to having you along, should you decide to join us!