Under Starter's Orders

OK then, the die is cast. I've done all my travel research and booked my flights.
I'm off for a trip from Split in Croatia to Istanbul in Turkey and I have "just ten days" to do it.

My first choice was to travel between my endpoints by car because it would give me a lot more freedom to stop and see what I want. However, none of the big hire car firms seem to allow cars to be taken into Eastern Europe (across the borders of Bulgaria or Turkey).

I briefly considered buses, but there's a limit to the amount of torture I'm prepared to volunteer for. Once I had a truly awful nighttime ferry crossing of the Irish sea and vowed I'd never again pay someone to make me ill for hours on end.

So I looked up all the flight and train times and they're in the table below. This is mainly for me or "just in case". I don't know which day or time I'll make each journey, so that's missing for now. In general terms I expect:

• Thursday Split


• Saturday Zagreb


• Monday Belgrade


• Wednesday Sofia


• Friday Istanbul

I'll add Plovdiv if mood or progress indicates.

So here's my itinerary:

From	To	Ref	Dep	Arr	Dur
LGW N	Split	BA2888	15/8 16:20	15/8 19:50	2:30
Split	Zagreb Glavni Kolod	IR522	10:53	16:17	5:24
Zagreb Glavni Kolod	Belgrade	415	11:10	17:26	6:16
		IR524	12:24	18:57	6:33
		IC211	16:48	22:50	6:02
Belgrade	Sofia	D293	21:00	06:25 next day	8:25
		D491	08:40	17:44	8:04
Sofia	Plovdiv	8611	10:30	13:14	2:44
		8615	13:30	16:11	2:41
		10113	14:05	17:23	3:18
		D491	19:30	21:47	2:17
Plovdiv	Istanbul Sirkeci	D491, D499, D81031	21:57	08:24 next day	10:27
Istanbul T1	LHR T1	BA0677	25/8 17:25	25/8 19:25	3:00