irishface

thanks for sticking with it! I enjoyed your trip report from start to finish.

gertie3751

Thanks everyone
From Cairo via Beirut!

thursdaysd

Hope you got to enjoy Beirut and not just change planes!

gertie3751

Had a wonderful week in Beirut. No time for trip report, will have to wait for later. Now in Aswan, no time here either!

Pegontheroad

I had lost track of this trip report and found it again today. It was great, full of interesting details, and as I have said before, in your breezy writing style.

It sounded as though in Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia, you were traveling solo, but the last part of the trip with a tour group. Is that the case? If so, what was the tour group.

Did you do a report on Beirut, Egypt, and wherever else you went?

I'm curious. You sounded British but mentioned Texas....

gertie3751

Hello Pegontheroad
Yes, I travelled solo from Tallin all the way to Budapest. 2 weeks. Then I picked up a group. It was with GAP Adventures, their Budapest to Istanbul tour. It was very interesting and a good way to see a lot quickly. Good thing about it was that I could join in group activities or not! Another 2 weeks.
Yes, if you look under my name you will see my comments on Beirut and Egypt.
And yes, I'm British but I have lived in TX for the past ten years.

Pegontheroad

Great Scott! Texas for 10 years!

I just found this report again and enjoyed it as much as I did the first time I read it. I've been reading some Alan Furst 1939-ish spy novels. The one I'm reading now, Kingdom of Shadows, has episodes in several countries of eastern Europe.

I have realized that there are many more histories I want to study and many more countries I want to visit. Your trip report has inspired me.

gertie3751

Isn't that funny. I have just read some Alan Furst novels after a break of a few years. Inspired by seeing David Tennant in Spies of Warsaw. Have also read Mission to Paris and Spies of the Balkans. I read the others years ago when someone I met in Zagreb recommended them.

irishface

Thanks for bringing this thread up to the top, Peg. I enjoyed it this time around as much as I did the first time! Thanks also for the rec. for Alan Furst. I just watched the first part of Spies in Warsaw this past week and look forward to the next part.

Pegontheroad

I guess I should watch "Spies in Warsaw" also.

I've read "Foreign Correspondent" and " Mission to Paris." I guess "Spies of the Balkans" should be next.

My brother recently gave me the magnum opus by Max Hastings, "Inferno--1939 to 1945." There is a section about the Finns fighting the Russians that I'd never heard of in my past reading.

"Kingdom of Shadows" includes dramatized information revealing the effect in eastern of the buildup to war. Very interesting.

thursdaysd

One of the best books on the Balkans is Kaplan's "Balkan Ghosts".

gertie3751

Certainly is Thursday. Also my favourites are Rebecca West's 'Black Lamb and Grey Falcon' and Misha Glenny's 'Balkans'. Neither of these are for the faint-hearted!!

Pegontheroad

I've just read your report for the third time, as I'm toying with the idea of visiting the Balkans next June or July.

Thanks all for the book recommendations.

Gertie, you said that neither of these books is for the faint-hearted. What did you mean by that?

gertie3751

Hello again Peg. What I meant was that they are both over 1000 pages in length and might be considered 'heavy going' by some readers. They require quite a lot of concentration and need to be read in big chunks. Hence not good for reading while travelling or when there are lots of other distractions. I read Rebecca West at home 20 hears ago before I knew much about the Balkans; read the Misha Glenny also at home after the trip as I was so inspired. I shall be interested to see what you think of them.

Pegontheroad

I'm used to reading lengthly books, though 1000 pages is indeed long. I'm almost finished with the third volume of Carl Sandburg's biography of Abraham Lincoln, but I've become bogged down because I'm almost to the time when he's assassinated and am reluctant to read that.

I have other books lined up in the queue, but I don't plan on going to the Baltics until about June/July 2015, so I have time.

I'll let you know when I read one or both of them.

Nywoman

Have just discovered your trip report because it was listed above mine.

I am new to the European forums since most of my TR'shave been from Asia. When I visited the Baltics I don't even think I knew that Fodors existed.

Where are you off to next?

Nywoman from NYC but currently in Ulnicj Montenegro

gertie3751

Hello Nywoman! I am enjoying your trip report so far and looking forward to more. I did a month-long trip from Berlin to Dubrovnik mostly by train a few years ago. Tend not to do Trip Reports because I think, rightly or wrongly, that my travel style doesn't fit with Fodors. I don't hire cars, prefer local public transport, stay in local 2,1 or no-star hotels, Easyjet and Ryanair if I have to fly. Very little baggage. I am a solo budget traveller!
Next week I set off for Paris (one week) Sicily (3 weeks) London (10 days) Crete (10 more) Manchester (only 3) and finally to Tunisia for the last 10 days. This schedule is more disjointed than usual because I have to fit in seeing people in Paris, London, Manchester and have had to fit in the fun stuff around their dates!

Pegontheroad

I've just read this report for the fourth or fifth time and enjoyed it as much as I did the first time.

I'd like to encourage you to do trip reports of all your travels, whether or not your travel style fits in with Fodors. I do rent cars sometimes, am often intimidated by public transport, and tend to stay in hotels that cost about $100, more or less. However, what's important to me is the destination.

You've done a wonderful job of describing the places you saw and your experiences in them. That's what's important. Reading this report has been very helpful to me in planning the Baltics trip that I hope to take next summer.

eigasuki

So agree with Pegontheroad, gertie. There are plenty of us traveling - by public transport, staying and eating cheap, checking our luggage and doing gadding about from place to place in a manner that appals some of the "regulars".

I too have been intimidated from posting trip reports and even asking some questions for fear of the lectures and insinuations.

Loved your report and your trip and some great ideas are brewing for future trips

welltraveledbrit

I really appreciate diversity in the reports here so do consider a trip report again. We travel in different ways on different trip and it's always interesting to hear how others go, thumbs up for public transport. Though having just taken a coach from Heathrow I'm not so sure it's a cheap option! I'd be particularly interested in what you make of Tunisia which is somewhere we are very interested in. I see you're traveling for quite long periods at a time and I find it's hard to do trip reports for longer trips because there's just too much to cover.