The highlight of April was my birthday trip to on the Orient Express with my friend and producer, Tris Penna and Tony.

Although the train jpourney there was absolutely exhausting with SO much happening all the time it was a completely unique and exhilerating experience, trundling through France, Germany, Vienna, Hungary, Roumania, Serbia, Bulgaria to Istanbul, stopping off at each destination for a taste of local culture and to drop off and pick up indigenous fellow travellers. What a vast array of life we experienced!. This was not the expensive posh trip for tourists you read about - it was the real thing.

We managed it just in time as you can no longer travel on the original Orient Express route from London with the advent this June of updated trains and lines in Europe.We staggered into Istanbul and hit the luxury beds avec en suite Turkish saunas with the sound of the train wheels still rattling in our heads. Then another unbeleivable and probably unprintable journey opened up to us. One day I will commit the trip to paper but for now I think the pictures do the talking?

click to enlarge...