Upcoming: Balkanizing, Summer 2006

This summer I'll be spending four weeks travelling through the Balkans. I haven't figured out my exact itinerary yet, or even when I'm going to go, but I'll be posting regularly on my plans and any information I come up with in advance. Right now I hope to visit a number of ancient Roman sites, mostly from the second through fourth centuries, as well as monuments from the Orthodox Churches of Serbia and Bulgaria. My trip should take me down the coast of Croatia, into Bosnia, across Serbia, then down into Albania, and back up into Romania, Bulgaria, along the Black Sea coast, and finally across Thrace at Edirne (ancient Adrianople) to Istanbul, Turkey. Obviously it will be a bit complex to figure out the ideal itinerary, and I'll need some times simply to correlate the present-day place names with ancient ones: Belgrade (Serbia) is Singidunum, Sirmium is Sremska Mitrovica (nearby, in Serbia), Sofia, the capital of Bulgaria, was Roman Serdica; and so on... it's difficult even to figure out which modern place names go with ancient place names, much less whether there is actually anything left to see there or not! Three summers ago I travelled along the coast of Croatia, visiting Split, which was originally constructed as the retirement home (!) of the Roman emperor Diocletian--its name derives from the Latin palatium, palace--and I may revisit it, or may skip it. I would like to go to Dyrrachium (now Durres, in Albania--that one's relatively easy to figure out) but am trying to figure out if I can find a ferry that goes there from Dubrovnik, which I've never visited. Lots of research to do!