Together with my colleagues from the WSL in Switzerland and from the Forestry University in Sofia, Bulgaria, I have been on multiple tree-ring sampling trips in Albania, Bulgaria, and Greece, and western Turkey.  We sampled Pinus heldreichii trees, a species with limited spatial distribution that can grow up to 1000 years old, at high elevation sites.  We also sampled Pinus nigra and Pinus peuce, two more widespread species that grow at lower elevations.  The intention is to reconstruct summer temperature for the region using tree-ring density measurements from high-elevation trees and to reconstruct precipitation variability using lower-elevation trees.