madrid 2

today we walked first to the turkish embassy and started applying for a real passport for coskun; the turkish procedure is a cheap procedure for people that loose things... you can apply for a passport with approx. the same info, that ends at the same date as your lost passport and it costs only 30euros.
(the dutch passport becomes a new one and you have to pay the full 135euro and if you want it in 3-5 days it costs 50euro extra, normal is 10-14 days, they say).

but the turkish system needs first a turkish ID card to start this and coskun left his ID card at home so we could not give that. so we had to pretend we lost it and go to the police (this time madrid) and ask for a rapport that we had lost it and with this document the embassy should first give coskun a new ID and afterwards issue the passport application. and we needed new and better photografs.

so we walked around and waited a long time at the police station and were able to end things around 15:00h at the turkish embassy (they will also get in touch and can send the new passport to us).
then we took a taxi to the dutch embassy where mr julio still didnt know anything about the way that coskun will get his visum back in one way or another... but he will mail again with the dutch foreign office and ask for their solution.
a paper from them stating that coskun had a visum would be the best; but we dont know if they think the same in holland. if they want to put the visum in a passport then we have to go to the luxemburg embassy in madrid to get it (they are the only ones in spain that can make visa for schengen countries) and if they also want to put it in a real passport (and not in coskuns temporary) then we have to wait until that arrives (5 - 10 days they think).

on the way back to our studio we just saw the barnabeu stadium get by.. from our taxi.

then back in our studio we started planning the rest of our holiday.
tomorrow first to granada, but we have to rescedule a bit, to be able to stay 2 days in granada and then some other changes; and now we are awaiting answers what is possible with this changes and make things definite, before we take off (not too late) tomorrow.

but first tonight a lovely real spanish meal with tribes and other inner parts but in a delicious sauce. we are in spain !

madrid

today again a nice and uneventfull trip on good roads under a blue sky, in a little bit boring landscape, with many grape bushes at first and later more corn fields.

we arrived in madrid around 16h and will stay here in a small studio with garage underneath for 2 days, I think....

we walked through madrid, a city with many nice buildings and ended at the placa SOL, where all the people of madrid come together when the days of christmas are near !

and they stand in long lines for restaurants that sell hot chocolate with sausages !?!

barca - valencia

in beautiful weather on a nice road we went uneventfully from barcelona to valencia today.
the scenery is a bit monotonous but still nice along many fruittrees and other greenery.

we arrived in valencia around 16:00 and had a stroll through the centrum. the weather was still nice by 21 grades. nice wide roads and pretty buildings. we didnt go into the famous arena, but we smelled the bulls!

then we set down for some paellas, and eat them until the last scretch.

last day in barcelona

we went to get our new tire and afterwards drove along several famous barcelona sites, until we got fed up with looking at everybody that came too close to our car and we put the car back in our garage.

coskun could at last get somebody of the turkish consulate in rotterdam on the phone, and we changed our plans.

(it is really frustrating that you cannot reach your ambassy directly (dutch and turkish te same problem), you phone to madrid but you are being connected to den haag resp. ankara !)

and only after 15:00 telephones are directly answered !

so we ran from our appartment to the turkish consulate and got there a few minutes after closing time but coskun could persuade them to open their doors for him.

the man said that nowadays it will be impossible to get into france with a temporary passport, which is normally not checked in schengen countries, but only ment for your returnal home!

so coskun has to apply for a real turkish passport which can be done on monday in barcelona, but maybe quicker in madrid; as we are fed up with barcelona and coskun has someday soon also to go to the dutch and maybe the luxemburg ambassy in madrid, we descided to leave barcelona tomorrow as planned for valencia and will then go to madrid for at least 2 nights.

maybe that the dutch ambassy knows what to do with coskuns visum on monday?..

we went to the famous market at the ramblas and boughed a delicious and a bit expensive seefood meal which we ate on our roof terras with a glass of riocha. byebye barcelona !

madrid

today I went to madrid alone. not only is a dog bigger than 10 kilos not allowed on the speed train, but it costs also a fortune!

I have to use high speed because that only takes 3 hours, a normal train takes 2 or 3 times as long!

my one way ticket had to be a first class because that was the only left and costed 190€. and no (free) wifi in the trains.

walking through the big SANTS train station I heard a man complaining in english to not understanding railway men that he had no money, he was carrying a bag from the dutch politie ...

I am wondering what will happen of our planned spanish holiday...

not easy to travel with so many robbers around us, going to madrid a couple of times, what will happen to coskuns visum? normally in the schengen countries we would have no problems at borders, but now ! with all the syrians and terrorists and we have a car with turkish plates so I am afraid everybody wants to check us.

this afternoon we will see how helpfull the dutch embassy is for us!

never been on a high speed train this is a new experience really. you think we dont go so fast and then it is already over 100km and the top seems to be 300, still not looking so much when you look outside.

just in time I arrived at the ambassy of pajos bajos and we started with the procedure for my new passport. 135€ paid with coskuns credit card (needed a bit pursuation) and it will come after approx 2 weeks to madrid and they will send it to me bij dhl or such. I gave our address in alora hopefully that will be possible.

now Coskuns visum.

after another hour waiting a new man come to look at our problems. he had to start anew with coskuns visum problem (just as the man that helped me with my passport didnt know anything, nobody had looked at the mails I had send as they had asked..) and he made a scan of coskuns new temporary passport and would contact me in a couple of days after contacting ankara where the visa were given to coskun and holland for procedures and possibilities). so we know nothing, they didnt say no but they also did not give possibilities or options as I had discussed on the phone yesterday with a lady that I did not see today!

so back with the 19h train from the beautiful ATOCHA station, now only 2,5h and only 160€, it just came back this seat then at first he said 233€ !  maybe "home" bij 22h.

25 november

the next morning (my birthday) I found between all the messages from friends and banks a mail from the garanti bank that somebody had tried to use my bank card 3 times yesterday evening, but with no succes because the pin was wrong.

I had not realised I took this card with me so I called the given garanti bank number in istanbul and blokked this card also. (the police was estonish that they were able to track these not-done transactions also and I was happy they were so fast in reporting it to me. I still havent heared anything from my dutch banks...

in their mail was also the name of the bank and the terminal used so we descided to go to the police office again later this day to report this, maybe there was a camera watching this bank terminal, but first I started calling with the dutch ambassy.

I was more than 1,5 hours on the phone and they connected me with den haag, madrid and back, but I was not able to learn what we had to do for coskuns lost visum (in his lost turkish passport). only some stupid statement that we maybe had to make an appointment with the ambassy of luxemburg in madrid that looked after schengen area visa.....  and they made an appointment for me for the next day at 14:30 in madrid to make en application for renewal of my passport or a temporary one. this passport would be coming a few days later! and for an ID card? the same!

then we went to the turkish consolate in barcelona without an appointment and after a little over an hour I had a new turkish ID card and coskun had a new temporary passport (1 month ). my ID card is not temporary and costs me 3€, the temporary passport of coskun was free.

then we walked arround as originally planned, around the gloria street, the ramblas, eating tapas and the famous market there and again off to the police station.

there it toke rather long again, talking with a swiss man that had been punched and robbed... and more people like us. it is not a little problem, no really everybody we met had been robbed one or more times !

then we went back to our appartment and internet to find a place to repair or get a new continental winter tire. I tried phoning the place, but like many other people here, no english, so we had to go there. we took our flat tire and a cab and went to the address, we managed to understand each other and he would orther a new tire and we made an appointment for 27-11 10h for the "montar".

we walked back through old barcelona streets and took some nice looking food and paella from a take away and had diner in our appartment.

on sea and in barcelona

the cold went on because our cabin stayed rather cold until the next morning until the sun heated it through our window. our cabin was on fido road and near the outside area fido park.. 

our cabin and shower area were larger then on other boats, when the sun started shining it became even nice. we had breakfast in our cabin near marseilles.

at the back of this ferry are 2 sitting areas in and outside, near the pools and a bar and snackbar. these areas are dog allowed so we could stay there comfortably.

there was a clear blue sky and still big waves. but the boat went trough it well, while we were looking at the passing coastline of spain.

after starting 4 hours late, we arrived only 2,5 hours late at 18:00 in the barcelona harbour.

then while riding to our appartment we got a flat tire and my handbag was robbed!

first we only had the problem of changing tires but after finding the appartment and the owner jep showed us the parking garage, we could not find my handbag and understood that something strange had happened!

later we understood that somebody put his knife in our tire while we were waiting for traffic lights and turning the corner we heared we had to park because we had a flat tire. then while coskun was changing the tire and I was helping him, somebody came to us and said that we were not allowed to stand there in spanish and later trying other languages. this conversation took quite long and during that time we both were looking at this man and not at our car. then it must have happened that somebody else opened a door and took my handbag out! we just said to ourselfes only one man warning us and nobody offering to help or anything. what kind of people live here?

later we understood that everybody here is quite afraid and is just minding their own busseness, not wanting to talk, or help, or change money for you, being afraid that you attemp to lose their attention and rob them!

after finding the appartment and the owner we walked together to the police station, blocked my cards and credit cards and together with an interpretor a statement was written by the police.

it was good that I made pictures of all our cards and passports a.s.o. in my Ipad, so we can at least show what we had! and that I had the Ipad not in my handbag but in the front of the car because we use it as a map in a place like barcelona (thanks to joop who told me that the app HERE excists and I can use this with GPS but without internet).

in italy and on the sea again

after a night with  5 degrees, it stayed like that until genova. cold, grey clouds, drizzly rain but again a good, well maintained autostrada along bologna, modena. parma and piacenza. the last 60 km were dry and the sun started to come. when we at last (just that part of the road that entered genova that we had to go, was blocked by an accident!) arrived at the port of genova it was still cold but 11 degrees with a nearly clear sky.

it was the first time that we traveled this road from piacenza to genova, and it was very nice although a bit curvy at the end, because the road was following a river (scrivia); and we had happily not chosen the road from parma to la spezia, we saw that it was snowing overthere!

after port controls and check-in we were on a parking lot filled with cars, loaded for tanger. and we heared that our boat was delayed (I suppose the same storm as we had yesterday had troubled our next ferry). so we (approx. 15 cars) were traveling together with hundreds of other cars and vans going to marrocco !

so a bit cold, under the light of a nearly full moon, between many dark coloured people we sit waiting for the arrival of our boat the Excellent from Grande Navi Veloci.

after some discussions at the reception (the ticket office had not given us a dog-friendly cabin and that had to be changed) and the long waiting and a not working key and a cold cabin, we finally set down in our cabin when the boat left genova shortly after mid-night (4 hours later then scedule!).

on sea and in italy

we had a very stormy night and day at sea. but this ferry the europe olympia is from 2010 and very good and  fast (29 knots) and our cabin was in the middle of the boat, so it stayed comfortable.
in the last hours even I could not stand anymore at the top deck, afraid of being blown away!
so we were an hour late as the boat had to fight the waves and we could at last at 16:30 enter ancona and italy !

then we had an easy drive to a small village called reda near faenza, on a brand-new or renewed autostrada for which we had to pay the same as for that impossible road in greece!
after arriving in reda we were driving around reda for a long time until we endly (aided by manuela who had come by car to help us) found her farm the contadino telamone.

a modernised eco farm run by manuela, her brother and mother. we had a very nice and we think healthy dinner and turned to our room : in the same style modernised farm.

varen varen ....

at 7:00 we arrived in piraeus, and had a bit of a chaos when so many people wanted to use elevators to leave the ferry! not many normal passengers. only a few cars in the belly of the boat.

10 years ago some of the new olympia road between korinthos and patras was ready, so we expected it to be completed by now, but no! more than 100km of road  (both toll road and national. road) were everywhere being build, rebuild, repaired, changed. and ... the toll-gates were working and we had to pay several times, to support the building of the road, I presume.

 

we stopped in egio , it is still 24 degrees but clouds and wind are coming. the weather is changing.

toffie found (again) new friends. this is hector from egio.

in patras we arrived very early and talked with a dutch lorry driver bringing diving equipment from the dutch navy that had been diving on crete back to den helder until our boat the cruise olympia of minoan arrived.

again a dog-friendly cabin, it is very easy and well arranged when we are allowed to take toffie with us in a cabin i.s.o. in a cold kennel on top of a boat!

many ferry-companies have this system now, but not on grimaldi.

20 november : op stap !

today was/ is a stressless day with beautiful weather, which we already had for 3 weeks!

we have a very nice after-summer (sarı yaz) this year.

on our way to the first ferry we had a look at the new restaurant/lokanta that our friend mesut opened in söke a couple of days ago.

we had a very nice real turkish lunch together with mesut and his wife.

now byebye turkey, we are waiting for our first ferry of today.

we quickly passed customs, did some shopping in the lidl and had dinner in a greek taverne with a turkish owner. and at 23:00 we take the bluestar ferry to piraeus.

the ferry arrived half an hour early and that was nescessary as not only we, but also hundreds of syrians had to enter.

we went quickly to our cabin, the rest of the boat was filled with camping syrians..

the bluestar announcements in the boat were in greek and arabic !

voorbereidingen

eerst de auto laten nakijken en van winterbanden voorzien.

dan allemaal naar de kapper :

 

nu de tassen en de auto nog volladen.

dan zouden we vanavond helemaal klaar moeten zijn!

2015-2016 VAKANTIE

nieuwe reisplannen voor winter 2015 - 2016

op 20 november gaan we op stap om eerst snel met een aantal ferries naar barcelona te varen.

op vrijdag de 20e rijden we dan via izmir naar çeşme dan varen we naar chios, en die nacht varen we naar piraeus. op zaterdag rijden we dan overdag in griekenland naar patras en varen we op zaterdag avond naar ancona, daar komen we zondagmiddag aan en rijden we dan in italie een eindje en overnachten dan ergens bij faenza bij bologna, om de volgende dag naar genua te rijden waar we s'avonds inschepen om naar barcelona te varen,
waar we dan dinsdag de 24e aan het einde van de middag hopen aan te komen.

en dan blijven we 4 nachten in het appartementje van jep; een eerste ervaring voor ons met airbnb (!) daar ergens midden in het centrum van barcelona, maar toch net buiten alle drukte en waar veel op loopafstand zou moeten zijn...