Here’s what happens when you let Syrian photographers take your passport photo! We needed more photos for our visa renewal so we went along to the local photo shop in Hama, got the picture taken and left for a couple hours while they did the processing. When we returned, not only did we have our passport photos but also two souvenirs. “So you remember us,” the photographer said with a smile. Well, Friedel looks 10 years younger thanks to the touch-up job (if only she’d known this was coming she might have at least given a small smile for the photographer) and Andrew isn’t looking too shabby either. Lovely bamboo frame!

Today we celebrated our fourth wedding anniversary! Four wonderful years and we hope for many more to come. We started our day by going to the famous site of Ephesus, admiring its stunning ampitheatre, library and many other reconstructed finds. It is truly gigantic (we easily spent two hours looking around) and we were impressed by the variety of things to see from all corners of ancient life, although we preferred Pergamum for its quieter nature. In Efes, you really have to fight for your spot among the bus and cruise ship tours, which flood the site from the moment the gates open.

From Ephesus we jumped on our bikes and headed into the hills to the scenic village of Sirence, where fruit wines are a specialty. Well, of course we had to sample the wares and we enjoyed a bottle of raspberry wine with a lovely meal. If you are in the area, we can recommend the Artemis Winery. It offers great views with your glass of wine and you can eat in the garden where chickens and roosters mull around your feet. The views across the valley are beautiful.

Tonight we plan to enjoy another meal at a hole-in-the-wall local spot we tracked down yesterday evening and then tomorrow we head away from the touristy coast and inland through cotton fields, past lakes and more archaeological sites. We expect to be in the ‘middle of nowhere’ for a good week at least before finally poking our heads up again in the big city of Anatalya. It should be a nice antidote to the busier tourist hotspots.

After a month in the beautiful rolling-hilltop region of Italy called Le Marche, it’s time for us to move on once again. We have truly had a wonderful time staying with the Wills family, earning our keep by doing lots of painting and household chores for them, while sampling the local wine, swimming in the sea and admiring the view. On a good day we have seen mountains over 350km south of here — amazing! We’ve also done a fair bit of work for ourselves, ordering new sleeping bags, applying for visas and renewing our health insurance. So many things pile up when you’re on the road.

All good things have to come to an end though and now we’re up at the crack of dawn, ready to get a train to Ancona and a ferry to the Greek port of Igoumenitsa. From there we’ll take about 2-1/2 weeks to reach Turkey via northern Greece, where again we’ll settle down for a few days to collect various visas for the trip eastwards.

We’re a little nervous about the journey ahead. It’s hard to leave good friends — we get attached easily to people and places — and for the past year we’ve been on relatively well known territory. After Greece we’ll be treading new ground and Central Asia sounds like a challenge: tales of weeks of nothing to eat but mutton and rice and plenty of travellers falling ill with stomach woes. We hope we can rise to the challenge and keep our sanity while also enjoy the fantastic scenery the area has to offer.

With lots of time on our hands at the moment here in Italy, we’re doing plenty of idle web surfing and in the process we’ve seen some really cool bikes! Maybe when we settle down again we’ll fashion a grocery cart bike to do the shopping with (as seen on EcoGeek)??

And if that isn’t enough, it looks like we could find plenty of other ideas for weird and wonderful bicycles on this site, Bicycle Design. Happy reading!

A few days ago we put up a poll on where we should go from here. We’ve really enjoyed seeing your votes. We haven’t settled on a final result yet but we have started the application process for an Iranian visa through an agency. When we get the answer from the Iranians, we’ll have a better idea at least of which routes are possible or not. One mystery is left by our poll, however… someone posted quite a long response with a possible route and identified themselves only as the owner of a bike built by the same person who made our sturdy steeds…. who are you? We’d love to exchange thoughts with you via email so do get in touch!