| SOUTH EAST EUROPE |
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End of June Ellie and I went on the last trip of our so-called 8 months break from our daily work. We loaded our car with campinggear and made a tour through South-Eastern Europe. This trip would last till August 12. After a couple of days in the vicinity of Dresden, we went on to the Tsjech Republic, where we stayed for a week on several places and visited Prague, one of the most interesting cities of Europe. The next country was Hungary. We stayed 3 nights on Farm Lator, close to the Bükk National Park. Here I had the possibillity to picture some birds out of a hide. The highlights were a Middle Spotted Woodpecker and Hawfinches, like this juvenile one on the picture below.
Our secon destination in Hungary was the famous Hortobagy National Park. This is an area of steppecountry, fishponds and marshes. It's typical open landscape with some old farms here and there.  We used our bicycles and despite hot temperatures we saw lots of birds, like redfooted falcons(picture below: a female), bee-eaters and all sorts of herons.  To find some cooler (in terms of: less hot...) surroundings, we went on to Rumania and, in particular, the Eastern Carpathians. These rugged and forested mountains form one of the wildest places in Europe, with still many bears and wolves. We also found this area fantastic for flora,butterflies and large insects.  We camped on Mustang Campsite in the village of Campul Cetatii . Atilla, the owner, provided us with a lot of good tips for visiting places and for good hikingtracks. For birds this area is better in spring. We decided to go further and after a one night stop, we arrived in Murighiol, on the edge of the second largest delta of our continent: The Danube Delta. Without any doubt, this is one of the best birdingspots of Europe. Two types of Pelican, Glossy Ibis, Spoonbills, all sorts of herons and the adjacent countryside still holds many Rollers, Bee-eaters, Hoopoes, Lesser Grey Shrikes, to name a few. We went into the Delta with a small boat for about 5 hours and this was one of the very highlights of our South-Eastern Europe trip!  a Squacco Heron, one out of many we saw..... Along the coast of the Black Sea we drove and then to Bucarest, from where we were heading south to Bulgaria. Just south of the city of Ruse lies the Rusenski Lom National Park, which is an absolute gem! Tucked away in this part of northern Bulgaria we hardly found a tourist, but we did saw a beautiful karstlandscape, with fantastic flora and fauna. We stayed in the superb "Four Pines" guesthouse in the little village if Nisovo. We really can recommend this place and the restaurant of the adjacent hotel "Black Stork", to everyone who is interested in nature at his finest.  a beautiful bug we found in Rusenski Lom Never we heard and saw so many Golden Orioles, it was just unbelievable. We'd spent 4 nights here and drove on to the Central Balkan Mountains, and stayed in the town of Ribaritsa. We only stayed here for 2 nights and didn't have enough time to explore the mountains. We had a nice hike and promised ourselves to go back some time in the future.  Central BalkanOur last destination in Bulgaria was the village of melnik, which we knew from a previous visit(spring 2008). This Mediterranean part of Bulgaria was now dry and hot, so less interesting than in springtime. There were some interesting birds to see though, like Emperor Eagle, Blackheaded Bunting, Woodchat Shrike and hundreds of White Storks. The latter were already gathering for migrating south. In Greece we stayed on the island of Thassos for 4 nights, spend a night close to Porto Lagos, with Lake Vistonidas and the lagoons before heading west. What was very obvious, coming from Bulgaria, was that socalled development, sponsored by the EU, is devastating for nature in Greece. Almost every lower lying area was intensively farmed and the usual crop was maize. This is very pittyful of course, also because Greece is potentially a very interesting country, cultural, historical and natural. Before going to the port of Igoumenitsa(for taking the ferry to Italy) we stayed 2 days near kalambaka, to visit the famous Meteora monastries. The setting is really very spectacular!  Landscape at Meteora To finish this trip: In Italy we've spent 3 nights in Tuscany, close to Florence and we can look back upon a very interesting voyage through the South East of Europa. |