Woke last night to the sound of thunder and a brilliant lightning display, near the witching hour. This morning it had cleared up, until I went out for breakfast. Then it started sprinkling. Good thing I'd planned on not doing much of anything today. Tomorrow morning I'm off to Istanbul, across the Black Sea on a ferry.

Yesterday was fantastic, the highlight of my trip so far. I went to the catacombs, the largest in the world, man made, about 4000 km of tunnels and caverns. Excavation started 200 years ago. They were used during WWII by criminals who then became resistance leaders.

The government here ignores the catacombs mostly, according to our guide,which is a real shame. One part of it, discovered recently, dates back some 3,700,000 years. I started singing happy birthday and everyone joined in.

Few maps exist. One of the guides has been exploring it for four years, the other for two. They lead by memory. Mapping attempts were foiled by boredom of the mappers, who then got drunk on vodka to make things more interesting. So the markings at different spots in the caves are often confused. One of the guides suggested that perhaps if we were as drunk as the mappers the markings would make sense.

This was the first guided tour I've taken since I've been here. I'd read that to attempt to explore the catacomb on your own could be suicide. The tour was well worth it. The guides threw in a lot of historical narration and have an obvious love for the place.

After a couple hours underground we surfaced and were offered the chance to see an underground wine making cavern if we were up for it, which we were. A good choice. Not on the high priced tour since it's not that well known and a little tough to crawl into, the cavern is about 35 feet high. The guides lit dozens of tea candles and popped a bottle of champagne.

:-)