From Prizren it is a short drive to the capital city of Macedonia: Skopje. We have booked a beautiful apartment in the diplomatic area of the city for less than 30 Euros per night. The Balkans has many destinations where you can rent an apartment, and that's great if you want to prepare your own meals. And that’s often healthier than the meals you get in the restaurants. Skopje is a city in transition (see the photo impression about Skopje). The local government is rebuilding many buildings in the city centre, often by only changing the façade. It wants to increase the looks of the city, by getting rid of the often ugly Soviet- architecture buildings built during the Yugoslavia era. For many locals, this is an eyesore, because they feel that the money can be better spent on social issues, because many Macedonians are still poor.

From Macedonia, we drove to Sofia in Bulgaria. Just over the border in Bulgaria, we come to the conclusion that this part of Bulgaria is still very poor, despite the fact that the country is part of the European Union (EU) already for several years. When you travel to some other EU’s 'new' countries, such as the Baltic States, Poland, Slovakia and the Czech Republic, you will see many EU paid developments in rural areas. But not in this south-western part of Bulgaria. The area is characterised by a dreary landscape even drearier cities and potholed roads. It is very visible that this is a poor area of Bulgaria. However Sofia, Bulgaria’s capital, is a pleasant city, well worth the effort to come here (see the photo impression of the Bulgarian capital).
The trip to Turkey goes through the dull landscape of southern Bulgaria. But once we cross the border we enter a beautiful Turkish destination: Edirne. This former Ottoman capital has some beautiful mosques, making the city a gem (see photo impression about Edirne); absolutely worth a visit on your way to/from Europe. Since we have been already to Istanbul in 2007, at the beginning of our long journey, we bypassed it this time and drove south along Turkey’s west coast. We stayed a few days on the Gallipoli Peninsula, a major battlefield during World War I (see the article on Gallipoli).

Further south we reached the area of the ancient classical cities. There are many of these ruined cities in the south-western part of Turkey, so we were forced to make a choice among them. Because we can’t and don’t want to visit them all, because after visiting some of the sites, there is a chance of getting a mild form of ruin-fatigue. We ended up visiting three, namely Pergamum, Ephesus and Aphrodisias (see also the article on the three ancient cities). These ruins are among the best- preserved classical cities of Turkey. Fortunately, we travel in the winter season so there wasn’t a huge crowd. Only Ephesus was pretty busy, and that is mainly due to the fact that this ruined city lies on a daytrip distance from some of the major coastal resorts towns, which are also popular during winter time. Ephesus is also a half hour drive from Kusadasi, a medium-sized town with a cruise ship terminal, from which busloads of cruise tourists are transported to Ephesus on a daily basis. So if you decide to visit the sites in the tourist season, there is a chance that your visit will be spoilt by huge crowds.