Islands of the Adriatic and Aegean Seas

 mapa.pngThis part of the expedition "European Islands from the Skies" took place between 30 September 2014 and 10 October 2014. Altogether this meant about 40 flight hours, 10 days of flying and about 8000 kilometres flown. I covered the islands along the Croatian and Greek coasts and the Greek islands in the Aegean sea. As I have done during all the other parts of the Expedition, I was sending on line reports and videos/photos from each day of the flight. These were published by the news portal iDNES.cz together with an on line map showing my actual position. The journey reports attracted up to 30 000 readers daily. 

The beauty of the Greek and Croatian islands is well known but seeing so many of them in a period of less than two weeks was overwhelming. I also managed to fly over and record cities like Split, Dubrovnik, Heraklion. On top of that my journey included the Corinth Canal, Boka Kotorska in Montenegro and Mt Olympus in Greece.

 

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7.10.2014 Video: Day 7

Otober 7, 2014

From Rhodes I flew along the Greek/Turkish border to the North passing over such beautiful islands as Tilos, volcanic Nisyros, Kos and Samos. The famous mathematician Pythagoras was born and lived on Samos. more

8.10.2014 Video: Day 8

October 8, 2014

From Samos I flew over the mythical island of Icaria where Icarus fell from the skies. Then I travelled further west to overfly Mykonos and south over Naxos and Ios to Santorini with its wide flooded volcano. When I finished filming there I continued to Milos and then landed at Syros. Here I managed to refuel and continued to Lesbos. more

9.10.2014 Photos - Day 9 Vey pleasant team of people looking after me at Lesvos Myitilini airport

08 October 2014

From Lesbos I crossed the Aegean Sea for the fifth time on this trip flying west again. I flew over the Sporades island group - Skentzura, Skopelos and Skiathos. Then along the western coast of Thessaloniki bay to the city of Thessaloniki where I stayed for the night. more

9.10.2014 Video: Day 9

October 9, 2014

From Lesbos I crossed the Aegean Sea for the fifth time on this trip flying west again. I flew over the Sporades island group - Skentzura, Skopelos and Skiathos. Then along the western coast of Thessaloniki Bay to the city of Thessaloniki where I stayed for the night. more

12.10.2014 Photos - Day 10 Athos moutain on Athos peninsula, the home of about 20 male monasteries

09 October 2014

This was perhaps the most dramatic day of this part of the European Islands expedition. I flew over the islands in the Northern Aegean Sea and crossed over to Turkey. However, for about an hour I was not able to establish radio communication with Turkish Air Traffic Control. As a result I was increasingly concerned about the possibility of being chased by the Turkish Air Force. Finally, over the Marmar Sea an airline pilot conveyed my message to the Istanbul Approach controller who gave me instructions to turn to the North. This meant that I could not fly my planned route via the Bosphorus but at least I managed to get through Turkish airspace without any real trouble. more

13.10.2014 Photos - Day 11 Gorna Oryahovitsa town after departure for the last leg of the Expedition

10 October 2014

This was the last day of the last part of the expedition "European Islands from the Skies". Because the weather forecast was not favourable for the following day I decided to fly directly to Příbram and thus leave out filming the Dracula castle in Romania. My trip that day took six hours and I landed at Příbram with fuel for another about 45 minutes. more

18.11.2014 All Photos

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6.1.2015 Video: Day 10 and 11

October 9/10, 2014

Day 9 was probably the most stressful of all the journey. After crossing the Greek/Turkish border I was not able to establish radio communcation with the Turkish ATC. I must have tried at least hundred times but no response. Not daring to enter the Istanbul TMA I circled at various altitudes and tried to talk to someone. Finally, a Lufhtansa pilot helped out by relying my message. Originally I wanted to fly via Bosphorus but in the end I was not allowed to do so and I had to turn north, directly to Bulgaria. more

Jiří Pruša > Expedition > Expedition 2014 > Islands of the Adriatic and Aegean Seas