Our Lastest Big Adventure...Feb - May 2014 Istanbul to Paris

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All photos for this trip can be found in these 3 photo albums:
2014 Europe Photo Album.
2014 Europe #2 Photo Album.
La Camicia Blanco Secondo Me Photo Album.
Some are also shown in our weekly blogs.

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This three month trip included stays in 4 countries and featured 3 new cities (new to us anyway) and four we have been to before. Well, five if we count Frankfurt where we stopped for a couple of nights before flying home.

Our general travel path in Europe, with our starting point in Istanbul and ending point in Frankfurt...

We used the website vrbo.com for all of our apartment rentals in each of the following cities (click on the city name to see info about the apartment we rented in that city. HOWEVER, NOTE... since we originally made this post, VRBO has been acquired by HOMEAWAY and many of the links have changed. These links may or may not point to a specific rental apartment but instead to a general area within the city. Sort of sucks,  but what can you do?)...
Istanbul
Rome
Florence
Munich
Berlin
Paris

For our brief overnight jaunt from Rome to Naples we used the website Booking.com to reserve a room at the Decumani Hotel in the Naples historic district. For our last few days in Frankfurt we also used Booking.com to secure a room in the Hotel am Zoo. 

We chose Istanbul and Paris as the two main new cities to visit and were not disappointed. We stayed 3 weeks in each of these two cities, mostly exploring the city with a few day trips to the outskirts or a bit farther afield but not much. There is so much to see in each of these cities and 3 weeks gave us all the time we needed without ever being rushed. In many respects we saw many things that the average tourist whizzing through misses out on. Lots of fun, except maybe for the tear gas (see week 3 for that bit). Naples was also new to us but, as noted above, that was just an overnighter from Rome.

The other four cities were a sort of do-over. The last time we visited them, in 2011, Kris suffered terrible plantar fasciitis and the time before it was Brian who could barely walk. This time though our feet came through with flying colours and we walked and walked and walked all over the place everywhere we went.

We flew to Istanbul then to Rome and from there it was the European rail system for the rest of the inter-city travel. Locally, in each city, we made use of public transportation be it bus, tram or underground metro. Staying at least a week in each place gave us the opportunity to buy cheaper longer term transit passes so were able to hop on and off without worrying about having exact fare.

All apartments turned out to be quite good although they each seem to have their own little quirks, but that's life and they all felt more like a home than a hotel ever will.

Our weekly blogs are listed below. They are linked to each other so start at week 1 then step through each week or jump to a specific week in the list...

Week 1 Courtenay to Istanbul
Week 2 Istanbul
Week 3 Istanbul
Week 4 Istanbul to Rome
Week 5 Rome
Week 6 Rome to Naples to Rome
Week 7 Rome to Florence
Week 8 Florence to Munich
Week 9 Munich to Berlin
Week 10 Berlin to Paris
Week 11 Paris
Week 12 Paris
Week 13 Paris to Frankfurt to Home