Crossing Europe and Asia

For the work transition period, I had planned another long trip to fulfill the gap. Although I had just visited the Europe ten months ago, the long time holidays were obviously appeared rarely after being in charge of the works. I exactly didn’t want to miss the any opportunities this time as well. By the way, due to the new work contents and creations produced in the free time already previously, I was not able to figure out extra meaningful tasks during the long holidays. Thus, four months ago, when I certainly found out the new job, though there would be ensured whether or not I could quit and take the long leaves in this period, I still make the surely schedule and start off the journey planning.

Ten months ago, for the honeymoon, we had visited the Balkans in the Europe trip where had been mixed with Catholic, Orthodox Church and Islamic mainly governed and affected by the Austria-Hungary and Ottoman Empire. Even though the Balkans is not the mainstream sightseeing area for major Taiwanese, the uncontaminated environments and the mysterious after civil war are still extremely attractive. For this time, I really want to take the long trip also. As a result, the Europe and the American were the likely choice, the Asia would be ruled out on the first stage. Finally, in order to extend the view cross the Islamic culture instead of focusing on the homogeneous European culture. We had made the decision of visiting the Turkey ultimately where we had transferred airline last time.

Turkey, located in the border of Asia and Europe, have the control the one of the most important strait and routine of ocean shipping in the World. The Rome Empire moved the Capital from Rome to Byzantium in AD 500 in order to control the strategic location. Afterward, the Byzantium Empire and Ottoman Empire had governed and affected the entire Europe and Middle over thousands of years which belonged to the Catholic and Islamic respectively. However, after the defeated in the First World War, the country had secularized in the revolution. Therefore, the role of Turkey whether for Europe and Middle East would be difficult to defined gradually.